Chimera
by Kiana Caelum
Summary: Chatoya Irkil found her soulmate when he tried to kill her. Blue Malefici: assassin, vampire, unpredictable and utterly merciless. He had made her a promise and now he would keep it.
1. Prologue

Where to start? I'm told the beginning's considered a good place, so here it is. Chimera is an L. J. Smith-based fanfiction, but you don't need to have read the Night World books to read this. I had a blast writing this story, so if you give it a go - I hope you have as much fun reading it, and I'd love to hear what you think.

**May 2010: **Er, don't be alarmed if this flashes up on the updated list. I've given the whole fic an edit and a facelift, and restructured it slightly. Thanks!

The lyrics come from 'Stay' by Shakespeare's Sister.

Thanks!

**Chimera - Prologue**

_You'd better hope and pray that you make it safe back to your own world._

Chatoya Irkil dreamed of blood, and ice, and endless blue sky.

Around and around she spun, the balls of her feet burning from the sheets of flawless ice she stood on, the air still and hung with droplets of mist. Surrounding her was the glorious bowl of the sky, arching out forever, and forever, bright with promise, bright with cold.

"I will destroy you," a voice whispered in her ears. Darkness twined around the soft, deep velvet of it. "I will leave you to rot in darkness, to long for friends and love that will never come. You will beg and you will plead..."

The sky snapped out and she was left in a world as black as the cloak of her hair, to shudder and to shiver and to pray to gods that did not exist.

Silence slammed in on her like a warhammer.

Silence and darkness. Soon, she could no longer stave them off. Her voice was nothing in the immensity of this, she was nothing but a bodiless creature, floating in a lightless, cold world. She was buried here, forgotten here, lost here.

Ghosts of words rang harsh in her ears.

"And no one will ever hear."

X - X - X - X - X

He moved like the shadow of a panther. Hands searching for tiny juts of rock that he could lever his fingers into, bare feet clinging to the barely-there gulfs that ran up and down the length of the rock.

Find a grip, and then trust to gravity and skill to slither higher up the sheer wall of rock he  
was climbing. Alone. Without a harness.

In the middle of the night.

Blue Malefici pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, perhaps six inches wide, and around a hundred feet above the ground. An easy climb, and a good viewpoint. He could see most of the road that snaked alongside the forest and ended at the shivering mass of the lake.

The figure appeared from the dark miasma of the woods, little more than an ant to him. But Blue flicked his mind out like someone else might crook a finger, and an owl dropped silently, swooping over the girl.

So this was her, was it?

She wasn't pretty. She wasn't even unique. She was utterly ordinary; the face you passed in a crowd every day, the wrong number you dialled, the girl behind the counter.

That was why she was so dangerous.

He pulled at the clouds that hung overhead like bulky vultures, throwing a little power at them. As she walked beneath, a harsh rain began to pound down, raising circles of dust on the old tarmac and providing thick, flickering cover.

He borrowed the eyes of the owl again, perched on a branch overhanging the road.

The girl came into view, and Blue snapped his fingers.

Lightning struck.

She shielded eyes that were a dusty, almost sandy brown. Average height, with hair that was a colourless flat brown brightened only by a few sun-bleached streaks. A watch on one wrist, one pair of earrings - plain studs - no weapons, no perfume, no readable expression.

She walks in mediocrity like the night, he thought and half-smiled.

Just like the night, she was something that could creep up on you with scarce a warning and swamp you in hidden power. He let her walk on by, amused and looking forward to the challenge she would present.

He waved the storm away, and apart from one last thought before he left, let the matter fly his mind.

So that was who they had sent to kill him.

_'Cause when you sleep at night, they don't hear you cry  
In your own world. _


	2. Chapter One

Evening, all. Many, many thanks to the lovely people who commented last time - I love hearing what you think! Thank you **Bruised Heart, Meg, Starwisher, Aquilla, Nokomiss, Water Angel, Diomede, Cynical Leaf, Amy, Me, Denise, Kat, Queen Kat, Dead Flower, Spellcial, Sapamfa, Starhawke, Dark Princess6, Tiger, Alissa, Shinki, insane, Starseeker, Kichiko, Midnight Haze, Labhaise, Sianna Keyna, Mandy, Baby Loca, Jewel, Lotty, Dianna, Blaze Baelfire, KensingtonGold, Ellie, Elwing Alcyone, Pandie Katteken, Die Hard, not n' angel, oli, Cianna Greenwood, Annabelle, Cacat-angel, Yodel, Sharmeen, Nostawen Allesiel, Whoever, Bridget, angelkatz, Dayna, Mental Twitch 'Sh33rs', silverclaw13, Apricitas, LifeSuckWithoutRealVamps, Georgie, yuki456, terriestal-angell, hidden jewel **and last but never least, **Cherrysinger. **Thank you for taking the time to let me know.

On with the show: lyrics come from Fiona Apple's lush _Shadowboxer_ (Album: Fiona Apple). Italics (aside from the opening quotations and emphasis) indicates telepathy.

I hope you enjoy reading!

**Chapter One**

_Oh, you creep up like the clouds  
And you set my soul at ease. _

She stumbled downstairs with a groan, rubbing her forehead as if that could rub away the dream.

_No one...no one... no one will ever hear..._

Chatoya Irkil had dreamt of those words every night since they had been spoken.

They were the words of her soulmate, whose soul seemed older than his body, who was dark and wicked and without any compassion. He was an assassin, and he had tried to kill her once and discovered instead that their souls were inextricably bound.

By all the laws of life, she should have loved him passionately; he should have reformed, becoming good and true as fashion and fairytale romance dictated, and they should have lived happily ever after.

Unfortunately, reality being as lawless and chaotic as it was, she loathed him with a fiery passion.

He had killed her twin, her parents and her friend, for no better reason than spite. Their faces haunted her as surely as his words, but they were gone and he lived on, sure, cruel, seemingly motiveless in his malice.

Bane - or Blue as he was better known for his spiky cobalt hair and endless, elsewhere azure eyes - had the same attitude to killing that most people had to breathing and Murphy's Law being what it was, had decided to breathe on Chatoya.

After a series of events in which they both tried unsuccessfully to send one another to meet their makers; Chatoya had made one very fatal mistake.

She had annoyed him.

His promise dangled over her every thought, her every movement. _I will leave you to rot in darkness, to long for friends and love that will never come. _

"Morning, lazybones!"

But the friends were here now, she thought, and smiled tiredly at her housemate.

"You looked like something the cat dragged in," Lisa Ochai continued cheerfully, busy making her famous kamikaze pancakes. The beads in her intricately braided hair clicked as she looked round.

"Haven't touched her," the merry voice of Jepar Jubatus said. The cheetah shapeshifter grinned at her. "I was windsurfing up at the lake and figured I'd drop in for brunch." Well, that explained why his hair, a deep gold spattered with brown circles like a cheetah's fur, was tousled and damp.

"How'd you sleep?" Cougar Redfern put in. From the slight windburn on his sharp cheekbones, and the way his short hair had dried into thorny spikes, he'd been at the lake too. "I didn't 'cause JJ here woke me up at five in the bloody morning."

"I told you we were leaving early, Rip Van Pillowthrower," the shapeshifter said, his green eyes aglitter.

"Early is eight o' clock. You woke me up at five o' clock. That's so goddamn early it qualifies as late." The pair were sat at the table, eyeing the pancake batter with some trepidation. "Still - it was worth being woken up. I was _flying_ today. Lise, that pancake done?"

The African girl frowned, jogging the frying pan. "Just got to toss it."

Cougar opened his mouth, and Chatoya just knew some comment like 'how many times have I heard _that_?' was going to fall out of his mouth. She smacked him across the head before it did.

"Thanks," Lisa said without turning round. "Slip of the tongue there."

Chatoya backhanded Cougar just as he began to speak. The lamia scowled, his golden eyes blazing. "Hey! It was going to be a perfectly innocent remark."

"Yeah," she said, settling herself down at the table, "and you're joining a nunnery."

Lisa snorted. "Wouldn't be a nunnery long in that case." She flipped the pancake and in true kamikaze style, it hit the floor with a sad splat. "I swear, it's this frying pan!"

"Lise, while you make a mean carbonara," Jepar said dryly, nudging her out the way to start cooking a pancake that had a ten percent chance of making it to the plate, "you aren't any good with pancakes."

"So," Cougar said mildly. "How are things with my half-brother, Toya? Still simmering with hate, resentment and rage, I hope?"

That was the other thing. Blue Malefici was Cougar's half-brother. And Cougar detested him even more than Chatoya did. They both had the same disturbingly striking faces, a bone structure to die for and the smouldering glare that could make men spontaneously combust and women spontaneously...well.

But where Cougar's spitting eyes and sullen smile made him proud, Blue's thoughtful, primordial gaze could strip the shields from your soul, and his smile was enough to run fear through your veins.

It would kill any hopes you had that the world might be better one day. Look into him, and you would see the sun snuffed out and replaced by the cold glow of a leprous blue-veined moon.

"Still the same," she said calmly. "I haven't seen him in two weeks, and that's how I want to keep it."

She had told them about the threat. Chatoya had been around Ryars Valley too long to keep secrets.

"Hey, Lise..." Jepar said wheedlingly. "You know your curtains?"

"Not personally, but one day I'll have to have a chat with them," Lisa replied, from where she was now sitting on the lino trying to untangle a pair of earphones. "Why?"

"Can I smell smoke?" Cougar put in, hiking up one eyebrow meaningfully.

Chatoya wrinkled her nose. He was right. Then her eyes widened. "Can I see flames?"

"_What_?" Lisa screamed, leaping to her feet. "Jepar Jubatus, I'm going to make _you_ into a pancake!"

Cougar raised a hand. "I'm bagging the maple syrup."

Lisa picked up the frying pan and hit Jepar with it, her face livid. "You stupid-" _Thunk_ "-moronic-" _thunk_ "-annoying-" _thunk_ "-shifter!"

Chatoya stared, baffled. In three years, she had never seen Lisa hit anyone with a frying pan. With her fists, yes, with a shovel, yes, even in a fit of pioneer innovation, with Cougar Redfern (something appreciated by neither Cougar or the six members of the Pack he collided with), but this was too surreal.

I'm losing it, she decided. It's either me or Lisa and she's the sanest person I know.

Sane people, however, did not pick up a whisk and threaten to whip up other people's intestines into the world's largest steak and kitten pie.

"Whoa!" Jepar held up his hands, already red from batting away the frying pan. "Lise, calm."

"Is now a good moment to mention that the fire's spreading to the wall paper?" Cougar put in, without batting an eyelid. Or moving a muscle.

Lisa turned her fury on him. "No, but it's a good moment for me to mention how decidedly unattractive you'll look with a whisk stuck up your-"

"Okay!" Cougar got up resignedly. "I'm helping, I'm helping. Put the whisk fantasies away."

Lisa was still threatening Jepar, who was listening in the intent way that meant he had wholly switched off.

"Lisa," he said finally, as she paused mid-rant, "Sorry, okay. I didn't mean to set your curtains alight-"

There was a hiss, and the entire wall caught fire.

"Shit," Cougar said, looking at the empty Evian bottle he was holding. "That wasn't water, was it?"

"No," Lisa said in a dangerously soft voice, "that was where we put the Bacardi to stop you two getting your grubby hands on it." Her eyes were glittering, and her voice slid into a full-blown scream. "What is it with you two? Why are men so bloody useless? Can't you even put out a damn _fire_? Why can't you just stay out of trouble? Why do you always have to be getting hurt, and, and..."

And then she burst into tears.

Of course, Chatoya thought, Lisa was worried sick about Cern Akafren, the witch who seemed to have a death-wish ever since his soulmate had died. Who wandered into trouble in the hope it might kill him.

Horrified, Jepar hugged her. _You're better at this than I am, Toya_, he said telepathically. Lisa had a death-clutch on him, crying helplessly. The kitchen filled with smoke as the fire continued to smoulder. _What do I do? _

_Doesn't Tali ever cry?_ she said, going over to the sink and pouring a bowl of water that she promptly threw over the wall. It doused most of the fire, and the last drops of her magic did the rest, but the wall was charred and the curtains were smoking shreds, and she was drained of magic and energy again.

He shrugged, patting Lisa in the vague way of men who didn't know what to do with a crying woman. _Yes, but she throws things at the same time. I stay well clear. And this is Lisa. She doesn't cry!_

_Make her laugh,_ Cougar suggested. _Let her see your face._

_As I recall, last time you made Lisa laugh,_ Jepar said bitingly, _it was an entirely different part of you she was seeing._

_Meow!_ he said, flushing faintly. _Kissing Ria works._

_I don't want her to get the wrong idea._

_Why not?_ the vampire threw back. _You've kissed everyone else round here. Toya, Tali, Ria, Ruby...can't you keep your mouth off anyone?_

_According to your soulmates,_ Chatoya put in, sensing Lisa listening, _both of your mouths have been places I don't want to know about._

There was a shocked silence.

_They tell you that kind of stuff?_ a horrified Cougar said.

_I'm going to kill her,_ was Jepar's input.

Lisa began to giggle, still crying, but she let go of Jepar, wiping at her cheeks and sniffing. "You're classic, both of you," she said, sounding more cheerful. "We talk about everything."

It was Tali and Ria's extreme misfortune to wander in just then.

X - X - X - X - X

The pure, fragrant scent of the bluebells hung thick as gasoline. Akin to a pale blue mist, delicate and fleeting, they lay over the floor of the glade and shivered as Chatoya Irkil drew her fingers through them.

She had left the house when Cougar started throwing kitchen implements. Since the first time she'd seen him lose his phenomenal temper, she had never underestimated the power of a high-velocity ladle.

And here she had come, to her refuge, her sanctum, her bluebells.

They bloomed out of season, fed by magic that Chatoya had rooted in here long ago. The last remnants of a magical battle some years back, when she had fought for her friends' lives, and eventually, for her own.

It was her place though, a place drenched in memories so intense that past and present seemed separated only by the thinnest of membranes. She could almost hear the echoes of Cougar Redfern's cutting voice, of Lisa Ochai's single awful scream, and finally, of wild and joyful laughter.

Lying on her back, she sprawled among the flowers that swayed in the breeze and brushed her skin. The sky was a simmering, periwinkle blue circle ringed by trees, unmarred by clouds or cares.

Above her, blue, below her, blue, beside her..._Blue_?

She leapt to her feet to sprint away, stomach swirling with fear and confusion because he was here, and she was in danger again-

He slammed her back against one of the trees so hard it knocked her breath clean away. Flaking, crinkled bark dug into her like nails, but nails were nothing compared to the icy viciousness in his eyes.

"How goes it, witch of mine? Destroyed any more lives without thought for the cost?"

His voice was dark, seduction soaked in promise and then frozen by cruelty. It was pure, utter Blue, and for a moment, she couldn't quite think straight to answer.

She knew his face, with those endless, arcane eyes that were the luminous blue of a dawn-flushed sky, impossibly vivid and immeasurably cold. Knew the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, and the arch of that nose, and even the surprising silk of a full mouth that was the only soft and sensuous thing about him.

He was beautiful, and he was a monster, and he cared about neither.

"I thought that was your prerogative," she said sharply, wondering if there was any chance of her wriggling free. But he had his arms planted either side of her head, and had very neatly stopped her trying the age-old female route to freedom via a swift knee by leaning his weight onto her legs.

His slender, disturbing smile was in place.

"When you do it so much better?" he declared silkily, showing no sign of the effort, if any, it must have taken to keep her still. "Even I have yet to unleash a ten thousand year-old butcher on an unsuspecting population."

Jallakri ap Ganra. A werewolf who had died, but taken too many people with her because Chatoya had stopped Blue from murdering her. He had made her that promise then: she had no doubt he would keep it.

"That was an accident," she defended. "And excuse me, but who created her?"

"Much as I'd love to play god...I don't create life." His voice was scornful, cool. "I end it."

"I'm not afraid of you."

The lie got easier each time she said it.

"So you insist." His eyes were filling up with gold, the summery colour of cornfields. "But somehow...I don't believe that."

"Why are you here?" she demanded.

"Didn't you cover that in biology?" he drawled. "Oh, stop scowling, witch of mine. I have an offer for you."

"Whatever it is, the answer is no."

"Let me rephrase that. Your friend Cernnunos Akafren is currently trying to kill himself in a number of creative ways because his darling soulmate died. Either you help me, or he succeeds."

"You wouldn't dare-"

His eyes such a deep colour that they seemed molten, his lips slightly parted. His hands moved to clasp her face, a touch hot and firm, and in that moment she thought she had never known anyone so stunning and so dreadful.

"I dare anything," he said in a voice that was a touch huskier than usual.

This was the side of Blue she feared the most. The side that had lost a little of that immense control, that was unpredictable and instinctive, and looking at her in that eerie, hungry way.

"I dare you to let me go," she said flatly.

"Almost anything. You have a lovely mouth, witch of mine."

What kind of thing was that to say?

She struggled, but to no avail against supernatural strength. His weight pressed in on her, warm and solid, and his hands were like steel. He was her cage, and Chatoya wanted to be free of him.

"Very lovely," he murmured. "I can see your blood pulsing there."

"Oh no!" Chatoya could hear her own furious voice, but her mind seemed to be detaching herself from what she knew must surely come. "No, you are not drinking from me!"

Spell, dear goddess, think of a spell. Blow him into smithereens, even turn him into a frog, anything...

"Try it and I'll hurt you," he warned absently.

"Oh, that'll make a change," she snapped and dragged power from deep inside her. It burned up through her veins, and Chatoya hurled every ounce of magic she possessed at him.

And as she stared, astonished, it sank into his body with no effect, dissipating under his skin.

His mouth curved into a satisfied smirk. "You should know you won't win with me."

And then there was nothing left to do but pray. His mouth sank onto hers, and then she felt the cold, thin sting of his teeth in her bottom lip.

Bastard, bastard, bastard, she thought as the tears sprang up and she pressed them back. Although he had learned to block their mind-link long ago, she knew he would dip into her thoughts if he felt the slightest hint of her despair or her fear. To him, it would be a victory as sweet as death.

Her head was spinning now; she realised his weight had lessened, and he was distracted by her blood. Not enough yet, but a little longer. Blood did for vampires what about six shots of neat vodka did for humans.

Wait, and wait, and hold onto yourself, hold onto awareness. Wait, and ignore this blood-kiss, and concentrate on his eyes, becoming a deeper shade of gold, becoming tarnished, and then bronze and then pure, liquid black-

He had left her hands free. Stupid, she thought, and thank god. She moved slowly, bringing her hands up against his chest. His stare leapt again with fire-

She pushed him, and as he fell, kicked out and heard a very satisfying crack in the region of his kneecap before she ran.

Another thing that Blue and Cougar had in common was the ability to curse loudly, extensively, creatively and in several languages.

It wouldn't take him long to heal - seconds. As she struggled through the woods, she knew it wouldn't be enough. His footsteps crunched in her ears, ever closer and louder even though she was sprinting full-pelt against the branches tearing at her.

His footsteps disappeared.

For a moment, she thought he had fallen, or given up-

No, he had pounced.

Just as she realised, he landed in front of her. She couldn't stop in time, and he caught her easily.

She ended up kneeling on the floor, with one arm twisted up behind her back and an alarmingly impassive Blue sat beside her, lotus style. His feet were bare, streaked with mud like his tattered clothes.

"I suppose you think I deserved that," he remarked.

In a variety of participles, verbs and adjectives, Chatoya told him exactly what she thought he deserved

"Like I said," he purred. "Lovely mouth. Shame about what comes out of it. However...I didn't come here to play. My proposition, witch of mine. You'll do it, or I'll start hunting your friends. Starting with my brother, and then running alphabetically."

She knew he would. Knew it like she had known the moment she had seen his soul that here was evil, or if not true evil, the closest thing on the earth there was.

"All I want is a spell," he said. "Simple, even for you."

"Why me?" she said. "I'm sure you could call in one of your Nightfire denizens to do it. Someone more powerful."

"I want someone I can trust." He laughed at her expression. "The only hold I have over them is money. But you...oh, witch of mine, I have your soul beneath my foot, and all I have to do is step forward."

Knowing it was true made it no less humiliating. She thought of her friends, and especially of Cern Akafren with his shadowed eyes the colour of bruises, and his gaunt face.

"All right," she said flatly. "But you promise you'll leave my friends alone."

"All of them?" Those mocking brows arched. "No. I will give you my word that one of them will be safe."

"Your word is worth nothing to me."

"It's all you'll get," he said with a shrug. "Give me the name. And there's no backing out of this, my witch. Once you're in, you're in until you meet your grave, which may be sooner than you think."

She had no choice anyway. "Cern," she said. "You leave Cern alone if I do this."

"Done," he said delightedly . "Now here's the interesting part about this spell. It's highly illegal, it's extremely dangerous..." The ring of gold around his eyes brightened, turning them a heavy, lustrous pearl colour that shone palely with all the colours of the rainbow. Fascinated, she stared. She had never seen Blue like this before.

His smile widened until he was nothing remotely human, only terrible and exquisite.

"And it raises the dead."

_Then you let your love abound  
And you bring me to my knees._


	3. Chapter Two

Thank you to the wonders of you who commented last time round; it was utterly adored, and brightened up my day hugely - you deserve your own galaxy! Thanks:** Diomede, ****Aquilla, ****Starwisher, ****Queen Kat****, Sapience,Me, Starhawke, Dwayberry **and last but not at all least, **Meg.**

Comments are muchly, hugely, fantastically adored and pored over, not to mention slavishly worshipped. The lyrics are from Tom McRae's _Streetlight_ (Album: Tom McRae).

Hope y'enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Two**

_She's a phonecall in the dead of night  
A stranger's voice I recognise  
She's a radio playing in the dark  
She's the name you'll find written on my heart_

"Here I am," she whispered mantra-like in her dull tones, and looked up into the abyss of the sky that was the same blue as his eyes. "I know you've seen me...but it doesn't matter. I'll find you all the same."

She'd had a name once. It didn't matter. Names were only for other people. She knew who she was.

She'd had a home once. It didn't matter. Home was only a place to run. But she didn't run; she chased.

She'd had a family once. It didn't matter. Family were only people to bother about. She'd killed them herself, and razed the house to the ground, and that had set her free.

Everything had become so very clear after one day that had changed her life.

After one person that had changed her life.

One person she was hunting now.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya sighed with relief as she pushed open the door of the Black Dahlia, her friends' refuge and would-be lair of depravity. She had healed her aches from her encounter with Blue, but she couldn't wish away the scars he left on her life and emotions. He was draining as a fever.

She was trying to think how to broach the subject. _Say, guys...I met Blue today, and he wants me to raise-_no. _Hey, you remember we were watching Night of the Living Dead_-no, that wouldn't work.

Because the thing was, she knew what they would say. Leave it. Don't do it. It was how the friendship game worked. Whatever your true thoughts, you said what was best, what would hurt least.

Friends didn't tear scraps from your heart. Friends didn't lay words at your feet like broken glass and watch you walk over them. Friends cushioned your falls, and made your world a warm, cosy place. Friends lied.

If you want truth, go to your enemy.

She walked into the Black Dahlia in time to see a large segment of the wooden roof fall on Cougar.

"Ow..." his muffled voice said from under various pieces of masonry. "That wasn't meant to happen."

She might have been worried - after all, wood and vampires didn't mix - but when something did Cougar Redfern serious damage, everyone knew. Strangers were awoken from their slumber; dogs began to bark. She suspected at least one coma patient had struggled out of unconsciousness to try and escape the howls of vampiric agony.

All that was visible was a pair of feet and a flailing arm, and clouds of dust billowing in the slanted rays of sunlight that came through the new and unplanned skylight.

Cougar's pitiful moan drifted up from the heap of wreckage. "Oh god. I'm the world's biggest pincushion."

"Well, if you will lose your temper," Lisa said warningly, going to dig him out. "Oh, hon, we're sending you to anger management."

"I don't need any bloody anger management!" a muffled roar came back. "My anger is damn well managed! There are hotels less better run than my fragging anger, there are-"

"DIY again?" Chatoya interrupted dryly, dangling a length of torn wire in her hands. "Destroy it yourself?"

Lisa Ochai, her dark skin streaked with dust, snorted. "You know Cougar. He's just like a rabbit with an inner ear imbalance." They shared a conspiratorial grin.

"What?" came the stifled query.

"She means you'll screw anything up," explained Chatoya. She pulled out a plank to reveal the lamia's face, scratched and dirty, but otherwise his usual fetching self. "What were you doing?"

"Changing the lightbulb," he said in an injured tone, pulling one arm free of the rubble. "Not my fault it wouldn't come out of the damn socket. Nothing broken, thanks for asking. Just a few cuts and splinters."

She dusted some of the dirt from his hair. "Hold still and I'll heal you."

"Right idea, wrong verb," he purred playfully. "Why are you here, babe, apart from to see me?"

"You're so arrogant," she said, and gave him a jolt of magic that healed his cuts and made all that spiky hair stand on end. "I don't want your body, Redfern, only your humble submission."

He gave her a coy look from simmering hazel eyes. "Ooh, will you whip me?" He collapsed in laughter at her expression. "Okay, I'll stop."

"Speaking of stopping," Thom Ausner put in. "My cousin's coming over here for a couple of weeks. He's taking a tour of the world in his gap year, and he asked if it would be okay-"

"You told him to come here?" howled Cougar. "Thom, are you mad? We're...us...and he won't get that! You know how everyone else thinks of us round here, and they're used to us!"

Chatoya knew what he meant, even if she didn't agree. She recognised that they were collectively a little odd, but she liked it that way. If she didn't like the trouble that came with it, she'd become used to it.

"Last time I got hold of the sour grapevine," Lisa recalled, "Toya was a naked Satan worshipper, I was Dracula's daughter, and Cougar was a cult leader."

Thom smiled faintly. Old Soul, and old friend, he might not have had Cougar's knockout looks, but he had his own brand of charm, and very little ruffled him. "When I listened in, Cougar was Satan, and we were all his minions."

"See?" Cougar declared, without denying a thing. "Your cousin will not understand."

Thom merely gave him a cool look, and pushed his wire glasses a little further up his nose. "Look, he's my family. Unlike you, Cougar, I like my family. I get on with them. I don't try to decapitate them at every possible opportunity. Sean's family looked after Kirsty all last summer - remember?"

"Oh, is that where she went?" said Chatoya, intrigued.

Since his mother had died three years back, Thom had been looking after his sister - his father had moved back to Ireland when Thom was six, and by some illegal wrangling, the human boy had ended up here.

He nodded, his pale eyes still fixed on Cougar. "And they sent over that massive slab of chocolate you all liked so much-"

"What, the Cadbury's stuff?" the vampire said incredulously. Unbeknown to many, the lamia was a terrible chocolate addict. "Well, if he brought some more, I guess we could put up with him..."

"Typical," Thom retorted. "Is it their kindness to my family? No, it's the fact they sent a bar of chocolate. You lot are all as shallow as a parking lot puddle." He shook his white-blond head despairingly.

"And proud to be it!" agreed Cougar, getting to his feet and shaking out his long legs. "Now...do we have a tarp to fix the roof with?" The other three sighed, and got down to work.

Every so often, a silence would fall, and she would think: now, now is the moment to tell them. To just casually drop it in. Tell them about the spell, or about Blue, or anything-

But someone would speak, and the moment was lost.

And then Cern Akafren came in, and she had no more hesitation in her heart.

He had never been a chirpy person, but he had always had a quiet contentment about him, a secret little smile that said the world was being good to him in ways other people could only envy.

Now...she hated the bruised colour of his violet eyes, the defeat and pathos in them. He was so, so grotesquely thin that it hurt her just to see him, and made her bite her lip and turn away because the first glance was always a shock.

Sometimes they would sit him down and try to convince him to eat something, and he would, but his eyes would look beyond them and he didn't say anything at all.

Even raising the dead seemed a fair price to pay for his life. Even.

But gods...oh, bright Goddess, she was scared

X - X - X - X - X

They buried me long ago.

It was a three o'clock thought, sounding in the lonely night.

She was sat downstairs in the empty living room. Staring out of the window, Chatoya tried valiantly to ignore the scroll beside her.

It seemed so innocent; just a tight roll of paper. Life from death, and death from life.

With the light gone, there were no distractions. There was the great dark vault of the sky above, the silence waiting to be filled, and herself. It was a terrible, empty place. The night; for so many a great and secret sea, but for her...a blank page.

Strange how the silence was so often ripped by her voiceless screams.

Strange how the page was not written upon, but scrawled upon in crazy, desperate lines.

Strange how time evaporated into nothing as she stepped between the years like a sorceress walking from the flaming pyre, untouched and aloof. Back to that time when she had first met Blue, this strange and dangerous being who cared nothing for anyone, who had no mercy, no compassion, no regret.

How young I was. How foolish I was.

How little I have changed.

She could hear the snaky shades of his voice, saying words that had fossilised into part of her being, as perhaps Blue Malefici had. He was the shadow of her soul.

_The world hurts,_ he had told her once, the only time she had seen him lose control.

And now that she stood alone, as she had before, she saw how true it was. She had hidden her tears, forbidding them to fall because in her own way, she was proud.

She had watched while her friends found love, and sometimes soulmates; witnessed them grow happy, and grow up, and change in ways that were sometimes drastic and sometimes subtle as a blink. Watching, always and only observing. She had seen them all hurt by love, and healed by love because that was how it went. To love someone utterly, you had to bare your heart to them and say:

_This is yours to do with as you want. I am yours to savour, to treasure, to adore... _

_And to crush._

Love and fear were never far apart. And for her, the fear was so overwhelming, the knowledge of all those she had loved - and because of that love, lost - vast and consumptive. While her friends dared love and heartbreak, she had held back in her knowledge that if love was eternal, people were not: with love walked death, a shadow hovering at the door, a cold wind whistling through the bedroom.

Time had flown past, suns rising and setting one after the other, and through it all, she stood unchanged.

When Blue had killed her family, he had cut out her heart too, and left her crumpled in the dirt. Yet these contrary, compassionate people, these friends, had dragged her to her feet, and wrapped their lives about her like a web to hold her up, and told her the things that people had to say.

They said: _I'm sorry._

But my family are still gone.

They said: _It will be all right._

But I am alone.

They said: _We love you._

And she knew now that she should have told them the truth, and perhaps they would have let her shrivel away. For in the darkness of the night, with her doubts and fears congealed about her, with all her daylight dreams stripped away, and reality stark before her, the truth was plain. She knew she should have said:

But I am empty.

X - X - X - X - X

Three o'clock thoughts that woke Blue Malefici from his sleep, and made him sit up from the coil of tangled sheets. Most people took time to remember who and what and where they were.

Not Blue. He went from sleep to awareness in the time it took to swing an axe.

She was a mile away, but Blue could feel Chatoya Irkil's emotions like they were his own, and it irked him. This piece of emotional self-mutilation was all very amusing, but not while he was trying to sleep.

Her thoughts thrummed in his head like a melody, and though he fell back with a languid stretch that made moonlight bend across the planes of his body, and pulled his pillow over his head, they wouldn't go away.

_Three o'clock._ He might be a creature of the night, but only by appointment.

With a faint sigh, he swung his feet out of bed and onto the floor, moving to the window. Doors, Blue often considered, were for people without imagination. Cat-flaps on a grand scale.

He slithered outside, pausing to stare at the sky and wonder how she found it so empty. For here lay an endless vista of stars, scattered like broken hopes across the indigo wash. The night, after all, was only the day in a different colour.

If she was going to keep him awake, he could at least get some entertainment out of the little fool.

X - X - X - X - X

What had she done in the years spent running?

Nothing. She had lived with these people who she called friends, but who were in truth only people moving at the same speed from different shadows. Again and again, she had given herself to them utterly, and again and again, she had been handed back unchanged and unhealed. Still empty.

She was a vessel to be filled, but she didn't know with what.

Love had come and gone. Hate had flitted by. Happiness was a bird on the wing, and desolation a half-hearted fling. She had been grazed by emotion, and the marks had faded except for fear and sorrow, which were a double-edged blade made of eternity.

And she was this.

Then the voice rang out. It was the voice to end the earth, a voice resplendent in darkness, drenched in cold. If stars could speak, this is what they would have sounded like.

It was a moment before the words made sense in her mind, grown sluggish and hollow in pain.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone more in need of a stiff drink." Blue sauntered into her vision. "What is it about people round here and a complete inability to lock doors?"

The answer stumbled onto her lips, and escaped. "It was locked."

He shrugged. "Well, it isn't lockpick-proof."

She felt him in her mind, moving like honey. "Why are you here?" She blinked as certain facts registered and jolted her from her trance. "And what are you wearing?"

He looked down. The shorts were fine, if frayed and tattered. It was the t-shirt. More accurately, the _slogan_, in glow-in-the-dark floating letters.

It said: "Assassins..."

"Do it for money."

"Are trained to do it."

"Will send you to heaven."

He gave her a long, cool look. "What?"

This was too surreal. She was in the middle of her living room, of the night, of a conversation...with Blue wearing a suggestive T-shirt. It didn't match up with how she was feeling.

"I don't need this right now," she told him bluntly.

A slow, sizzling curl of a smile began as he strolled to sit in front of the fireplace. He stared at the empty grate for a second, and flames burst into the hollow. "The torture is all on your part, witch of mine. I don't tend to torture people in my sleep. I'm good - superlative, in fact - but I still need to sleep. Which incidentally, I'm not doing at the moment because you woke me up."

The words made anger surge in her; her voice was almost a hiss. "How dare you? You did this to me. You killed my family. You..." But she let her thoughts trail off, because she had almost said to him, you destroyed me. And she wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

The laugh reminded her of Cougar 's, sinister and delicious. "Destroyed you?"

Too late.

"Stop it," she said, her voice thin and fierce.

"No. You're stronger than that. Right now it's late, and you're feeling miserable because you're scared of that spell. But destroyed?" The words were laced with amusement wicked as arsenic. "When I've taken you to pieces and scattered you to the winds...then you'll know what destroyed means."

"You can't hurt me!" she said, enraged by his arrogance. "Been there and done it and bled all over the t-shirt, remember? You're my soulmate, Blue, and we both know that you're not going to risk killing me and losing all your precious powers, and your sanity and maybe your life."

He tilted his head back in the firelight. "Ah, there's that fight of yours...you know, I believe I actually prefer you this way to being so ridiculously gloomy. But then, I've always liked the fight."

"No," she said, pushing herself to her feet and glaring down at him. "You like the surrender. You like the power. Other men buy sports cars. You kill. Maybe it makes up for other deficits."

He raised one eyebrow, and the flickering firelight seemed to twist his face into something demonic. "That sounded suspiciously like a challenge to me. And you know I can never resist them."

For a moment, she didn't understand what he meant. Then as he stood up lazily, and smiled his predator's smile, she felt her heart duck into her stomach for a second. She really shouldn't provoke him. It never ended well.

"It was an observation, not a challenge," she said as coldly as she could. "Now get out of my house and take that repulsive T-shirt with you."

"Oh, you don't like it?" he said tranquilly, and stripped the shirt off, throwing it carelessly in a corner.

Chatoya nearly dropped dead in shock. He looked so much more dangerous without that piece of clothing. Gleaming and natural, muscled in the subtle way of a puma that had so much hidden strength. There was a long ridged scar that ran from near his heart down to his stomach, marring the smooth skin, and she had to wonder what on earth had caused it.

"How's this, witch of mine?" he said. He stepped forward again, and one hand gripped her chin, until she had no choice but to look squarely into his eyes. He was warm, warm in a way that had always shocked her. Something like Blue should have been cold as a headstone.

"Worse," she snapped shakily. "Why can't you be normal?"

"Normal? All right, witch of mine, let me act normally with my soulmate." His smile was nothing shy of flirtatious; the free hand was on her waist and sliding upwards.

"If your hand moves any higher," she informed him sweetly, "I may have what they technically term a knee-jerk reaction. Understand?"

"You'd do well to stop baiting me then," he murmured, but there was ice under each word, chipping away at her. His grip had become hard, distractingly painful. "Because I never, ever back down."

"Remember who's casting your spell tomorrow," she reminded, and let the unspoken threat hang like a body twisting in the breeze.

He let go, but his stare was as invasive as a touch. Chatoya resisted the urge to blind him.

"You're much more interesting when you're angry. And for a moment there, you almost looked pretty. So let me give you one final piece of advice."

He smiled, that small, satisfied smile that said the world lay at Blue Malefici's feet, and he damn well knew it.

"Don't ever threaten me again."

"Or what?"

The answer was something she wouldn't have expected.

He moved with an impossible boneless grace, and simply - so simply - took her hand and dropped the barriers he had put up that blocked the soulmate link.

She was dropped into hell. Into his emotions, into the absolute surety of knowing that she was born to kill. She knew what it was to have others' lives cupped in her hands, and to feel the raw pleasure of wrenching them apart, of impossible power boiling under her fingertips, of feeling no guilt and no remorse, of blood soaking every inch of her soul through and through, and of the terrible hunger of always wanting more-

He let go, and she realised she had been about to scream. But instead, she let out her breath on a high-pitched gasp, and stared at him.

"Or that," he said casually. "Until tomorrow."

And he was gone. It was her and the night once more, but she didn't feel empty now.

She was filled with fiery rage, and a yearning to give Blue exactly what he deserved, or because she didn't have an electric chair, as close as was inhumanly possible.

How does he always win? she wondered, and the answer fell into her head like a clock chiming.

Because he always does what no one expects.

_What no one expects..._

Oh, wait. Oh...now this would be perfect.

Raise the dead? Ryars Valley was full of them.

And quite a lot of them had been sent there by Blue. She'd bet they'd love to see him again...and all they needed was a gateway between this world and theirs, and to open a gateway, all you needed was someone who could sense the spirit world, who had powers drawn from it.

She could hear them clamouring faintly in her ears now. The ghosts, the lost and the forgotten, faint as a breeze. Dancing, gliding, sometimes chilling. Filling her with purpose, crowding about her.

Someone who could sense the spirit world...

Someone like a witch.

_I am envious and obvious and desperate for your love  
I am shattered by and criticised and still I crave your touch  
And I know the time you're killing is mine  
But I don't mind_


	4. Chapter Three

I'm sorry this took so long! I've been up at 5am most days, and absolutely shattered. Thank you to the wonderful, fabulous angels of you who reviewed last time round - I loved hearing what you thought. Thank you:

** Dark Princess, ****Diomede, ****Queen Kat**, **Dwayberry, ****Meg, ****Mandy**, **Me, ****Dead Flower,**** Greeneyes**, **Night Goddess,** and finally, fabulously**, ****Alissa.**

The lyrics belong to Heather Nova's _Not Only Human_ (Album: Siren) - here's hoping you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Three**

_There's a power when you're near me  
In our heads or in our bones._

Rows of stones stretched out before her, cold and still. So many that her head spun with even thinking of the hordes of people entrenched in the earth. A thin, curling morning-mist dampened her ankles, and she seemed to hear weeping, endless and faint on the breeze.

A thousand different tales ended here, stilled under the tongues of their tellers.

She clutched the spell, but an odd question had posed itself during the night. With all his dragon magic, why didn't Blue do this himself?

A hand tapped her shoulder, and she instinctively turned to aim a sharp blow at whoever it was.

"Chatoya Irkil!" The boy blocked her swinging fist with one hand. His mismatched eyes were wide, as startled as they were startling, changing colour from moment to moment. As she watched, they went from a deep blue and pale gold to a grey so deep it was nearly black and green. "Witch girl! It's me, Aspen!"

"Oh!" She stopped, and looked at the anxious face. "Blue didn't tell me-"

He snorted, and then gave her an absurdly sweet smile. "Well, he wouldn't, would he?"

Aspen Martin, as far as Chatoya had been able to tell, was what Blue might loosely class a friend.

That had surprised her.

He, she knew, was like Blue, an extremely powerful assassin who led an organisation that aimed to keep the races pure. But he seemed, well...nice. Maybe those strange eyes held a bit of madness, and he came out with some perverse announcements, but basically, he was far too normal.

"No," she said in disgust. "He'd have loved watching us fight it out. Why are you here, anyway?"

A shrug. "I run Pursang, Mal runs Nightfire and sometimes we join up and kick ass." Aspen gave her a sly grin, as if a bright light had lit up the shadows of his thoughts. "And it wouldn't have been much of a fight, witch." Before she could blink, one hand had wrapped around her throat. "I'm fast."

She'd been in this situation before and one thing she knew for sure was that vampires tended to have a certain overconfidence in their strength. So she touched his cheek, and jolted him with magic like a streamlined steel kiss. He yelped, and danced away from her.

"I'm faster," she said quietly, and let it sink in, revelling in the small measure of respect in his face. "Don't you attack me, Aspen Martin. I healed you when Blue let you get shot, remember? You owe me."

"That was life. But this is business." He trailed his fingers over gravestones almost lovingly, but there was only cold practicality honing his tones into a weapon. "We're not playing games anymore, witch girl. There are no vermin involved, only us. And I don't trust you. You hate Blue, and maybe I don't like him much either, but the difference is that I won't try to stop him."

An awkward silence fell while she watched him from the corner of her eyes. He ducked his head under brooding yews, and positively skipped across the graveyard with the childish delight of someone who did not merely push reality away, but threw it over the horizon.

You don't live in the real world, she thought sourly. You live in your rich little world of assassins and dark deeds. And maybe it's not nice, but it is simple. Your answer to everything is to cause fear.

She didn't need Aspen's homicidal tendencies, especially as he'd been known to lose his temper variously because someone trod on his toe, he didn't like the weather, and he'd forgotten how to spell Mississippi.

"How's your better half?" she inquired.

The one who's weak, like me. The one thing you actually love. The one person who can make your world real.

The frenzied fog faded from his too-thin face. "Good," he said almost shyly. "I'm giving up the job for her."

"Really?" she said in disbelief.

The smile was genuine and, devoid of madness, charming as a songbird. "Yeah. It's not like I need the money anymore. Only one small problem..." He hesitated then said, "Can I unload on you?"

Bonding is always good, Chatoya thought. It might make him consider before he tries killing me. "Sure."

"There's no one to lead Pursang," he said unhappily. "Blue stipul-spitul-"

"Stipulated?"

"Yeah, thanks - he stipulated that whoever leads has to beat me in a fair fight." He shrugged, and squinted up at the morning sun as if it might hold the solution. "No one could. Only Blue could, and Therese could, but well, they're running Nightfire and K'Shaia."

"So you're trapped?" she asked more gently.

It stunned her that someone who was surrounded by so much power might not be wrapped in it, but caged in it. Snared like a sparrow in a cage of diamond; a dull, bland thing in a beautiful, sparkling mesh that was more than it could dream, but trapped all the same.

He nodded glumly. "I might risk losing deliberately...only this isn't gambling with the gods, it's Blue."

"He's no god," she reminded him pointedly. "He just acts like one."

For a moment, he seemed older, as he reached out and took her hand. She nearly pulled away, because the intimacy was startling with a boy she didn't even know, but he meant no harm...or she didn't think he did.

All the innocence faded from his face, and she saw underneath that clever act.

And how, how clever it was.

She couldn't look at him, at the shattered age that lit him up like the sun through rain, fractured if alluring. She had been wrong and stupid to think of Aspen as anything resembling young. No one could live in so much terror and pain and be untouched by it.

"You don't know very much about Blue, do you?" he said.

She simply stared, and felt her breath trembling through her lips.

He let go, and the mask plunged over him. The face he turned to her was whole, his voice blurring into a wistful sigh. "Well, whatever. You ready to wake the dead? It's going to be so fu-un..."

"Well, isn't this touching?" a cold voice said, as Blue slid from the shadow of a crypt. "A veritable Kodak moment. You're looking thoughtful, witch of mine - care to share?"

God, I have got to start carrying hand grenades, she thought.

"I want to know why it is you need me here," Chatoya said sharply. "You've got enough magic to do this spell easily, and we both know you're perfectly capable of reading a scroll."

His face flickered briefly, but he merely gave her a slim, enigmatic smile. "I have my reasons. Next?"

"Where are we going?"

"Where the dead sleep." A soft hiss of air as he swung open the crypt door, bringing a dank, musty scent. As he sauntered in, his voice floated up from the depths. "I hope you're up-to-date on curses."

"Yeah," Aspen said, looking at her in a thoughtful, absolutely professional way that told her she meant nothing to him despite his confidences. "If not, I can think of some good ways to test out how well the curses work..."

She gave him the slow, measuring look that she had seen Blue use, and to her astonishment, he dropped his gaze, and his face paled a little.

"You learn quick," he said softly, and she wasn't at all sure what he meant. "You want to be careful, witch. You aren't as human as you used to be. Or I'm not as Nightworld. I don't know which...but..."

His voice trailed off, and though she looked at him with a question in her eyes, poised on her lips, he shook his head. She brushed it off and followed Blue into the tomb.

So she didn't hear his feather-light murmur. "Maybe I wouldn't win that fight."

X - X - X - X - X

_A month previously_

He dreamed of days when the world had been a churning heap of lava and smoke, when he had been a hunter pure and simple with no conscience to slow his steps and temper his temper. When the dragons had been supreme, when no one had bothered to count time slipping away, when humans had been primitives and fools, when witches were insects and vampires non-existent.

He had had his own kingdom, a pleasant haven that he had made for himself in the middle of the wilderness when he tired of destruction and annihilation. Even tyrants needed to kick back once in a while.

Sweet dreams, but tinged with sadness that those days were gone, regret that the world was so complex and so tangled up with emotion now.

"Iager?" Hands pushed at him hard, annoying him. "Iager, get the hell up and stop lazing about."

"I'm awake," he muttered, as light spiked into his eyes. "Really, I am..."

For a moment, he managed to drift back into the memories of times long gone-

His ex-wife tipped the hammock and Iager was sharply awoken by the impact with the dry, grassy ground.

"Oh, you bitch!" he snapped, scraping tiger-fur hair back from his aching temple. "That hurt."

The made vampire glaring down at him had the cool, glazed looks of an ice maiden, only she was no maiden, and the ice in her had once been melted by him. Shame she froze over again so easily. Her eyes were a pale blue, piercing in a way that could startle even a dragon, and a cap of short, sleek hair framed a face that wasn't the most beautiful he had ever seen, but had been the one most dear to him.

He had fallen for Trifolia Rassmussen in what could only be called a whirlwind romance. And like a whirlwind, when it fizzled out, there was only a lot of rubble left over.

Tri shrugged, but didn't help him up. "You're a dragon, you should be used to the school of hard knocks. Time to stop loafing about in a hammock, Iager. I've got a job for you."

"How charitable of you," he said coldly. He wondered how they had once been so close to be so far apart now. A councillor would say 'irreconcilable differences'. Me being a dragon, he thought tiredly, and her not being able to cope.

She sighed. "Something's going on with Nightfire and Pursang, those oh-so fun little bunch of assassins...we've heard that their heads are up to something. Bane Malefici and Aspen Martin...Aspen's always lived in Ryars Valley, but Blue moved there recently and-"

"What did you call it?" he interrupted fervently. No...surely it couldn't be...

His ex-wife gave him her deadly, exasperated look. "Ryars Valley. I suppose you could call it an enclave, out in the desert. Strange really - from what Dark's told me, it's an absolute paradise, and it shouldn't exist, but it does. Anyway, these two guys are the biggest bundles of trouble we've seen in a while."

"And I know you're no angel," he said dryly, though his heart hammered fretfully. Ryars Valley...

Her glare was not friendly. From what he knew, Tri worked for what could loosely be called an information office. There was nothing going on in the Nightworld that her boss didn't know about - and wasn't blackmailing someone over.

"Look...this Ryars Valley place - tell me about it."

"I could find out for you, if you want." Her tone suggested it would be a great inconvenience. "But it's Malefici and Martin we're more interested in. Rumour says they've been getting hold of some highly illegal spells - and rid of some highly important people. Dark...wants a favour."

He should have known. Tri's boss had no qualms about using a dragon who could look like anyone to spy for him. "Where, who, what, why?"

Tri gave him a wintry approving glance. They'd been married for a matter of months, before he had realised she was too intelligent for him, and he was too flighty for her and didn't care about settling down.

"Ryars Valley, a couple of weeks, find out what our lads are up to." He remembered times when her eyes hadn't held that aloofness but a tender warmth. It was pity they had grown so far apart. "We have a contact there who'll get you in." She smiled thinly. "Are you game?"

Iager nodded. He needed to get away from this crude city. "Absolutely. Who do I need to look like?"

She produced a photo, and murmured in that voice with a faded hint of a French accent, "Well, here's the interesting thing. It's not just a case of looks..."

X - X - X - X - X

_Ryars Valley, now_

It wasn't a crypt at all, Chatoya quickly realised, but a long winding tunnel that snaked under the earth. Aspen had a guiding arm under her elbow in a gallantly vain attempt to stop her stumbling in the blackness, until Blue stopped and declared, "Let there be light."

She blinked as torches on the walls lit up like roman candles, flaring with a black flame that slowly turned orange. They came to a halt before a sealed stone door that had vast runes scrawled on it.

Aspen tilted his blond-streaked head back and forth, frowning. "Are those curses?"

"Yes," Chatoya husked, leaning forward to examine them. She licked her lips, trying to get some moisture back into her mouth.

Then she noticed Blue watching her, his eyes dark and hooded, and resting on her mouth where the faint scars of two puncture marks remained. Her stomach twisted, and she couldn't quite hide the thought that slid across the back of her mind treacherously, whispering that Blue would pay for that very soon.

"What do they say?" asked Aspen, blithely unaware of the rapidly charging atmosphere.

"Basically," her soulmate murmured, "bugger off. Well, witch of mine, can you break them?"

They were powerful, but simplistic. Like a high voltage electric fence - if you knew where the weakness was, you could break it easily. She searched the runes intently, and finally she saw what she wanted - a tiny flaw, a crack in the spell.

"Do you have a knife?" she asked, then promptly wished she hadn't as she remembered that the two vampires might look like ordinary teenagers, but one of them had stolen dragon powers, the other was nuttier than a pecan factory, and they were both assassins.

"I have a garrotte," Aspen offered kindly, if disturbingly. "And a knuckleduster, and a lighter, and a few poisoned darts...and a throwing star, and a stake if that would be any use-"

"Here." Blue flipped her a knife, tones oozing boredom. "If you're planning to use blood to break the hexes, you may want to send Martin away. He's somewhat lacking in control when it comes to blood."

"It smells so nice," Aspen protested faintly. "I'm a _vampire_."

Send him away? Leave her alone with Blue? "He can stay. If he tries anything, he'll end up as a flame-grilled vampburger. Okay?"

"You want fries with that?" Blue said indolently, and his eyes flared gas-flame cobalt.

She ignored him, and grimacing, held the blade above her palm, trying to brace herself for the pain and wishing the knife wouldn't wobble so. It was a moment before she realised that it was her who was shaking.

I do not want to do this, she thought. Whenever she'd used blood before, she'd always cut herself accidentally. Never deliberately, and it was just too difficult-

Blue clamped one hand round her wrist, took the knife and ran it across her hand before she could even blink. Chatoya screamed and snatched her hand away, giving him a healthy slap with her uninjured one.

"You bastard!" she shrieked, and would have hit him again if Aspen hadn't caught her hastily.

"You're supposed to be breaking curses, not making them," Blue pointed out icily.

Oh, gods, she thought as she stared at his face and felt her anger drain away. I nearly attacked him. I must be going crazy.

Aspen must have had the same thought, because he whispered very softly, "That was close. Next time you feel like early martyrdom, can you warn me?"

"Martyrdom," she muttered back. "I didn't know that was in your vocabulary."

The lamia boy chuckled and let go of her, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Tam's been making me read," he said proudly.

"Yes," Blue said, dragging her stare back to him like the North Pole drawing a lodestone. A livid red mark ran down his face. "Aspen is at last discovering the joys of seeing Spot run."

She gave him a final glare, goosebumps rippling down her skin as his lips peeled back to show the delicate curve of fangs, and turned back to the door. It wasn't any trouble to smear her blood over the door, and whisper the most powerful lock-breaking spell she knew.

It slid into the enchantment like a crowbar into a narrow gap. Just a slight wrench of her powers and-

"It's open," she proclaimed as she felt the spell dissolving around her like walls crumbling into powder.

"Well, call me untrusting," Aspen announced chirpily, "but you can go in first."

"Oh, I think you can trust her." Dark amusement, lighting Blue with unholy radiance. A glitter in his eyes might have been excitement. "Ms Irkil is in my debt."

He gave the door a sharp shove, and it swung open a few inches. Blue eased through the gap like a cat and into the chamber beyond. She caught a glimpse of pillars and immense arches before his body blocked it.

Aspen leaned so close she could breathe in the familiar smell of cigarette smoke that clung to him. "Sure it's his _debt_ you're in? Only people keep telling me Blue's hot, though I'm not seeing it myself and-"

He must have seen the outright horror on her face, because he faltered.

"Maybe not, then?"

"Honey," Chatoya said pleasantly, "not even if we were the last two people on earth and there were no more sheep. It's Blue."

His smile was pitying, and too knowing. "Well, where do you think he got the nickname from?"

Before she had grasped what he meant, he slithered through the gap, hauling her with him. And within...

X - X - X - X - X

The girl appeared to be doing nothing more than window shopping as she stood on the main street of Ryars Valley. But in the reflection, she could see the pale-haired human boy and the little girl clinging to his hand. Snatches of their conversation reached her.

"-I want Sean!" the little girl protested. She had the same white-blond hair as the boy, pulled back into messy pigtails, and a streak of mud on her round face. "He loves me!"

The human boy chuckled and picked up the girl. From the closeness of their features, they had to be related. "Kirsty, he buys you ice-cream."

"Yup," the girl agreed amiably, wriggling as he tried to brush the mud away. "He was real nice to me last summer. *And* he promised he'd bring over some chocolate-"

"You'll have to wrestle Cougar for it then," the boy sighed, and hefted her onto his shoulders. He didn't look strong enough to hold her, but she knew well the deceptiveness of appearances, didn't she?

"He says I'm a fiend trapped in a kid's body," the girl giggled, and snatched her brother's glasses. "Hey, Thom, what'll happen if I break these?"

"I won't be able to afford any ice-cream for a couple of months," the boy said cheerfully, cocking an eyebrow as the little girl put them back over his pale eyes. "Cougar doesn't like you because you used his phone to make international calls. And you poured lemonade in his VCR."

"Did not!" Kirsty said. The watcher felt a pang, because something in the clever if grubby face reminded her of herself at that age. "Well, maybe I did, but I did ask him...it's not my fault he wasn't listening."

"I think he said that was because he was trying to rescue next-door's cat from where you chased it up a tree," Thom Ausner muttered, then nearly fell over as the little girl screamed and hit him.

"The bus is here!" she shrieked. "Sean's here! Put me down, Thom."

The girl watched in silent interest as the doors swung open, and a chestnut-haired boy bounded off with suitcases and bags and exuberant energy. The little girl threw herself at his legs in a huge hug that nearly knocked him over. The watcher stayed still and silent and vigiliant, storing away all she saw.

Who knew when it would come in useful?

X - X - X - X - X

Silent screams assailed her ears, and every piece of psychic power she possessed hammered her, telling her that this was a place of evil, a place of blood and death...

"Witch girl?" Aspen's voice had a little waver to it. He hadn't let go of her yet and the hairs on his arms were on end. "Are you okay?"

It was what she needed - a real voice, not the howling ghosts that she pushed back into the past, where they belonged. Though not all had been old ghosts. Among them, there had been a dark thread of a voice that had been _familiar_ somehow...

_Not yet,_ she told them, _when I cast the spell. Please, not now._

There were children's voices wailing among them, and that was what she found hardest to bear. The air was so still, but bound into the very earth were the souls of everyone who had died here.

Too many, more than were twisted into the earth. So many that their voices were one buzzing wind, so many that for a moment her vision disappeared under the half-forms of spirits trying to warn her, tell her, save her-

She clung onto Aspen so tightly she could feel his pulse.

It wasn't so much a tomb as a small temple, maybe twenty metres square. In the centre of the floor she could see a dried up pool, a stone slab that looked suspiciously like an altar and pillars all around that had been painted black somehow, but were now cracked and peeling.

And around the altar lay shattered white fragments. Chatoya prayed they weren't what she thought.

Blue was beside it, reading something on the stone from the looks of it.

"Blue..." Aspen's voice sounded unnaturally loud and breathy in the silence, and she felt his grip on her hand tighten. He was scared, she realised suddenly, this rough, tough assassin was frightened so much that he was trying to grind her fingers into pulp. "Is this...?"

As the cobalt-haired boy stood, and turned around, for a moment she could see him as the priest of this ghastly temple, with that scornful smile welcoming the sacrifice.

"This is where Nightfire was born," he said, and his voice rolled across the still air like thunder. "Do you know what's in this altar?"

"Is there any chance it's a small, fluffy frightened puppy?" she said glumly.

"None whatsoever," he answered, and the rich mirth in his voice chilled her to the bone. He slapped the altar and it rang hollowly.

Hollowly...

"This is a coffin," he told her.

She licked her lips, not wanting to ask the question, but knowing she had to. "Whose is it?"

His laugh was black as sin, rich as coffee, cold as a corpse. "The man that Nightfire worshipped, Chatoya Irkil. The man who created Ryars Valley. And the man you're going to raise from the dead."

The spirits screamed.

_I know nothing, but I'm guessing  
When we die, we're not alone. _


	5. Chapter Four

Another week, another opportunity for the wreaking of havoc...and also the end of the holidays. Well, it was nice while it lasted, but what is infinitely nicer are all the absolute angels of ye who reviewed - thank you hugely! I loved hearing what you thought, and appreciated the much needed kicks to get the next part out. Thank you:

**Night Goddess, ****Meg**, **Queen Kat**, **Persephone**, **Me, ****Diomede, ****Askani, ****Cynical Leaf**, **Dwayberry**, **Mandy**, **Shinki,** **Magelet** , **Dark Princess** and finally, but not forgotten, the lovely **KC**.

Comments are much adored, pored over, adulated and venerated. They make my day, and I can hack criticism so feel free.

The lyrics come from The Bluetones 'Marblehead Johnson' (Album: Pachinko, The Singles). Hope you enjoy!

**Chimera Part Four**

_And now the pressure's on  
The heat is rising  
The time has come to stop apologising._

Aspen didn't like this situation at all.

He was sure that something was going on between Blue and Chatoya Irkil. In fact, if he hadn't known better, he would have said the witch was rattling Blue.

He couldn't understand how anything about her could be a threat. She was soft, fragile, breakable. When she brushed back her cloud of black hair, the only truly lovely thing about her, her eyes told him everything.

He'd heard that old saying that the eyes were the windows to the soul, but he disagreed. The eyes were a gateway. Sometimes barred, sometimes merely hung over with a fine veil, or concealed by shadows, but always hiding the truth from the world.

Except to that one chosen person allowed to step through. The one person who could push down the thickest walls with the way their mouth curved when they smiled, the promise in even the simplest touch, the look on their face when lost in thought.

Tam had walked into his heart, and Aspen thought he'd never been quite so happy. If she couldn't take away all his bad memories, she was a balm to them, an utter contrast. Sometimes, he thought if he hadn't had such vile things happen to him, he wouldn't understand what a gift she was.

But Chatoya Irkil's eyes were utterly exposed.

Someone had destroyed all her defences and left this vulnerability and pain that somehow had not ruined her, but merely made her stronger. He could see the secrets in her eyes, a moss-green wilderness, and even if he didn't know what had devastated her so completely, he knew he had seen someone like this only once before.

He wondered if she would become the same, dreadful thing as the years passed.

So he watched her, and he watched Blue, and kept himself close though he hated this place; it screamed to him of the darkness that he was so afraid of. All it would take would be for the lights to go out and-

Chatoya Irkil's voice cut through his thoughts as she read the spell.

And Aspen was startled by the look on Blue's face.

It was something he hadn't seen before, an emotion unusually raw and harsh on a face often hung with the kind of blank impassivity that would have made a statue appear a paragon of communication.

But when he looked at Chatoya Irkil, Blue's eyes burned. And it was a moment before Aspen recognised his expression.

It was envy.

X - X - X - X - X

Unaware of anything but the runes that seemed to almost crawl upon the pages, Chatoya read the words. Around her the space contracted to make room for something else.

A great wash of air threw her back against the altar, and a greater wash of uncertainty tingled in her head. Raising the dead was not merely unlawful, but a threat to the fabric of reality.

Well, if you're going to break the rules, break them properly.

In front of her, the air tore with a sound like ripping paper, reams and reams of paper shredding in one moment.

She knew what she was meant to do.

"Who am I looking for?" she said, keeping her eyes on the unnatural breach. It glowed with a faint, pearly light. Flecks of orange and red grew in it like swelling dew, then exploded in tiny flares. "I need the given name."

Name something, witchcraft said, and you have taken a part of it as yourself. And something that is part of you is known to the rest of you, and can be called back when you will it.

"His given name was Igniserrae in his time and his language," said Blue.

She called the name into the void, fear making her senses razor-sharp, but nothing came through. The spirits nudging at the boundary whispered to her that no one of that name had ever been here.

That meant something so phenomenal she almost forgot her true purpose.

But she gathered herself and called them to her like moths to the sun. She was a beacon in a world long gone cold and still to them, a warm refuge of life.

Be careful, she counselled herself. These people didn't die gently or softly. They are here for revenge, and revenge only.

But so many were helpless, useless. They were only misty shapes, unable to touch or to harm.

Then a voice spoke to her from the horde, a voice that was filled with promise as dark as a spider's blood. The sound dribbled over her senses, so insidious and so powerful...

_I want him,_ it whispered. _I will help you. I will hurt him if.._.

_If?_

_You set me free, witch._ It oozed persuasion. _Let me out, and I'll hurt him for you._

She knew that dark power. It was a wraith: a dead soul that took other's bodies for its own and ruled them with an iron will. A thing compelled to cling to the human world by some blazing desire, doomed never to fulfil it.

Could she do this? Could she really let something like this into the world?

And then she remembered her brother dead, and her parents burned to nothing, and her friend, whose only crime had been to stand in Blue's path and be hewn from it without a thought.

She recalled Blue, cold and arrogant and unrepentant, laughing at her, telling her that he would do it again, that he always would because it was what he was born to do. Telling her that the world hurt.

The word came from her like a battlecry. _Yes._

She wrenched open the rift with her magic.

A tormented shriek burst through the air, the cry of those other trapped and pathetic dead things who saw the world they could never reach. And it came through on the wave of it: a haze of eldritch green.

It had a face, contorted and lengthened with an emotion so ancient and festered that it was a moment before she saw it for the hate it was.

It whispered a name, two breathed syllables that washed in and out of its mouth like a tide. And it said: "Asss-pen..."

Oh, goddess, what had she done?

X - X - X - X - X

The wraith poured into the world like a radioactive spill.

Fury overran Aspen. She'd betrayed them - she'd let this thing loose again. His first thought was that he had not walked through that waking hell years and years ago with Blue Malefici and Therese Orage at his side to see it finish because of some angry witch.

It had killed him in another lifetime, and tried to kill him in this one. He knew it, had thought Blue destroyed it...but of course, what was dead couldn't die. Not truly.

He saw it only as a sickly green light, looming in his vision and a hellish face that sometimes haunted his dreams-

It hit him: and he was lost.

X - X - X - X - X

He was possessed.

Chatoya knew that at once from the way Aspen moved. Not his darting nervousness, but a sleek, unbelievably fast grace.

I can't believe I just did that.

She had the feeling that this was going to be very, very embarrassing later.

"Remember me?" he - or it - purred. Emerald light poured from his eyes.

A horrible, cold sensation was working inwards from her hands, stealing up her arms like a treacherous thief. She had believed this...thing when it said it would help.

"I seem recall kicking your demonic posterior, yes," Blue said amiably.

His hand snapped out to pin Chatoya's arm.

_I'm angry,_ he said in her head. The words slammed down like boulders dropping into a lake, quick and hard and sharp. _In fact, I'm furious. Your treachery is annoying, but your stupidity is, frankly, disappointing._

She had never heard his voice so cold before. The icy, deadening feeling had reached her shoulders, and held her still.

It laughed, and the worst thing was that it was a particularly pleasant laugh. Nice, natural, the kind of sound that made you want to beam back. "And will you kill me now? Do you think you can?"

Blue stepped forward, and dragged Chatoya with him. The cold had reached her face, and turned skin to smooth numbness. She glanced at his profile, and saw his eyes were narrowed fractionally, and mutating to that sizzling golden colour.

"I don't _think_ I can," he said, his grip on her loosening for a moment. "I _know_ I can."

Aspen smiled crookedly. "Without your dragon powers?" The wraith shook its head. "They don't work here, you know. This place is bewitched to the ceiling. It was Nightfire's temple and they knew what dragons did. They knew just how to stop them." It was suddenly feet away, half-crouched and poised. "Still think you can win?"

It leapt.

Next thing she knew, there was a horrible, painful impact on her side and she was crumpled on the floor. Her head spun, red paths flickering across her eyelids, and she couldn't quite seem to get control of her body. It was betraying her now, when she most needed it to work!

She flinched as something cracked above her.

It was a moment before her eyes could take in the scene.

Green light flashed out from Aspen, light that sliced Blue's skin open where it touched until he was slick with blood. But he wouldn't give in, and he wouldn't stop fighting.

Gods above, was Blue actually losing? The coldness was all over her now, and she was shivering as though in the grip of fever.

Please, please, I didn't mean for this to happen. It was between me and him, Aspen had nothing to do with-

The wraith slammed him onto the altar above her and she closed her eyes at the bone-jarring thump. When she opened them, his arm hung over the edge, limp and unmoving.

This wasn't what I wanted, she thought. I wanted you to hurt, but I didn't want it to be like this.

She didn't know what she had wanted or expected. Herself being smug and superior, she supposed. Being able to control the situation, to have power over him-

The horror of it burst in her like a balloon, escaping through her mouth in a comprehending, aghast moan.

I have become like Blue.

No. No. That can't be true. I feel. I care. I love.

No one would know that for one moment, she had been like him. She had been sightless in her revenge, uncaring of anything except herself. And-

The wraith was above her.

Aspen leaned down, his skin shiny with streaks of sweat. His eyes dripped venom, green and cruel. This was not the sweet, scary boy, but an unforgiving beast.

"Stupid," it said. The mouth moved, but not quite in pace with the words.

"Very stupid to let me out...but it doesn't matter. You won't do it-" Hands lifting her, dragging her head back. She felt the scrape of teeth along her throat in two stinging trails."-again."

I swore I would never be a victim again. I would never be made weak the way Blue made me weak.

I've survived him - I'm not going to let some substandard bodysnatching Exorcist-wannabe kill me. If I'm going to die, I'd like to do it with _style_.

I really am thinking like Blue too much, she decided.

"I think you'll like the afterlife," it purred against her throat. "After all, you know so many people there."

Fury surged up blindly through her veins, mingling with the fear and mixing to become something older and more powerful.

Pure, blind survival.

Fifteen generations of witchpower heaved into her hands.

"Go to hell," she said, and punched it.

Her hand was a glittering glove, not flesh but spirit, and it hit the wraith that nestled inside Aspen, hurling it into the air. And before it could move, she grabbed it with hands that were pure enchantment and thrust it into the rift before her.

Aspen crumpled into a shuddering little pile at her feet, his gasps harsh on the air.

She pointed at the breach that ballooned out as the wraith tried to hurl itself back into her world. Her goddamn world.

So much power flooded her that she was almost drunk on it, reeling from wave to wave of the glorious energy that she hadn't even guessed lay locked inside her. Chatoya smiled, and felt the magic beating in her lips, seeping out of every pore of her body. The ghostly screams were rising, so high she could scarcely hear them now, but her voice cut across them like an axe.

"Blessed be," she whispered, and clenched her fist.

The rift vanished.

She only wished that the consequences would do the same.

X - X - X - X - X

Thom gave the door a hefty kick and it slammed open. He winced at the crash of crockery, and made a mental note to tell Jepar that next time he left plates on the side, Thom would personally re-enact the more unpleasant scenes of the Shining on him.

"Always sticks in the heat," he said irritably, glaring at Kirsty as she pushed past him.

"Don't worry about it," Sean said cheerfully, dragging in his rucksack and the various carrier bags of presents. "If you break things in threes, it's lucky."

Sean had always had the annoying habit of being disgustingly upbeat, and worse, a morning person. Thom had always considered morning to be sometime after eleven. Sean lived in a village ringed by farms, and got up when the cock crowed. The first time he'd tried to get Thom to do the same, his cousin had learned just how large a dent an alarm clock could leave in a wall.

Kirsty beamed at him, twirling round in the middle of the kitchen. Thom prayed she didn't step on anything. "What else did you break?"

Sean smiled. "Well, getting here broke my account, and the moment you turned up here, all hell broke loose, so I reckon that covers it." He had a lilting Irish accent that was almost musical. Kirsty loved to hear him talk, and would make him tell stories over and over just so she could hear his voice.

"Did you bring Cadbury's?" Kirsty said eagerly, grabbing a bag from him and rifling through it with the expert hands of the youthful criminal.

"Uh..." Sean looked baffled. "Cadbury's?"

"Chocolate," Thom supplied, hoping for his own sake that Sean hadn't forgotten it. Kirsty had been known to bite. "Kirs was counting on it since she's bled me dry."

"Oh, right!" Relieved sigh. "Sure I brought it!"

Kirsty gave him a healthy slap on the elbow, which was as high as she could reach. "Don't be dumb, Sean, you know what Cadbury's is!"

The Irish boy grinned and showed flawless teeth. "It's been a long journey, kid."

Something was off. "Hey...what happened to your broken tooth?"

Sean laughed easily. "Got it capped. They make 'em good enough now that you can't tell the difference."

"Chocolate!" Kirsty said sternly, distracting Thom. He grinned at her antics as she tried unsuccessfully to trip Sean up. That failing, she squeaked indignantly, and began to rapidly raid the remaining bags.

Thom adored his little sister, but she drove him nuts. And he knew she played on being little, gap-toothed and big-eyed like nobody's business.

When she skinned her knee, she went and cried in the street until strangers bought her ice-creams and comforted her. And whenever she met someone new, she would bring up the fact she was an orphan, and had no one in the world, and hadn't any money though she so-o loved ice-cream, and occasionally throw in a sudden difficulty with long words.

Thom, who had heard her use the words ingenious, parasitic, and mercenary, all of which she was, wondered how people were fooled by her.

She was sharp as a knife, and keeping any part of his life from her was a difficultly Thom was still trying to master. But he had found that she, the little minx, had parts of her life she had keep secret extremely successfully.

Like the fact that until a few weeks ago and Thom's unscrupulous if accidental eavesdropping on a phone-call, she was selling information to the Nightworld.

Not just to the Nightworld. To an assassin called Blue Malefici.

_'Cause when the skies go clear, the threat of rain is always here  
With you._


	6. Chapter Five

Thank you to all of you luscious, lovely and amazing people who reviewed last time round :-) This part is out a little sooner! Thanks:

**Queen Kat, Me, Dark Princess, Zeffer, Mandy, Magelet, Kris, Danel **and last but by no means least, **Imasine. **

The lyrics come from Sarah McLachlan's _Do What You Have To Do_, (Album: Surfacing) an utterly heartrending song. I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Five**

_A glowing ember, burning hot, and burning slow._

The morning was heating up like metal under a blowtorch and the sun-worshippers were out in their hordes. Ryars Valley was soaking up the last few drops of summer before the autumn rains came in, and enjoying the last day of the weekend before Monday returned.

Lisa Ochai was shocked to walk into her garden and find several half-naked people in it.

"Oh god!" she said, clapping her hands over her eyes. "Stop with the gratuitous nudity!"

Cougar Redfern opened a lazy eye and grinned. "Can't we convince you to start?" he purred, resting his weight on his elbow to pick up an iced drink. "I've seen some of that tempting lingerie on your washing-line. Red, lacy, practically non-existent..."

"That's Toya's, not mine," Lisa said, peeking through her fingers at his sunburnt nose, and slightly less sunburned shoulders.

There was a clinking rattle as Cougar spat out his drink. "No way! She's too...too restrained for that!"

"Don't know Toya too well then," the boy in a hammock said, hanging his head over the side to look at Cougar upside down. Jepar Jubatus grinned. "Don't you know that the quiet ones will always shock you?"

"I could do with that kind of shock," Cougar drawled. "In fact, I could do Cha-"

"Eww!" Lisa shifted her hands to her ears. "Take your fantasies to someone who's interested! Your girlfriend, for example. Or are you two not talking _again_?"

The black-haired boy scowled. "I can't believe she told you guys all that...stuff. It's personal."

"And what you were just saying wasn't?" she argued, moving to sit down by him.

Hazel eyes squinted at her irritably. "I wasn't talking about anything that actually happened. You know I've never done a Jepar on her."

"Hey!" the blond shapeshifter said, "I have not kissed everyone here. I have never touched Lisa, and I didn't hardly talk to Jal while she was here, and excuse _me_, but did I take Zara down to the lake two years back and-"

"Let me retract that hasty assessment," Cougar said hurriedly. "And get back to my point ,which was that I have never discussed...those things with JJ or Cern or Thom-"

"In detail," Jepar amended.

In this light, Lisa could see all too clearly the four scars that raked his cheek, blighting an otherwise stunning face forever, and pulling the corner of one eye down, but Jepar didn't seem to care.

"Yeah," Cougar said, nodding. "Detail is what makes the difference."

"You're such a pervert," the girl on his other side said, raising her sunglasses from her nose.

Alisha Althasson was pretty in a very wholesome way, with the rich brown hair that she had had set in a loose mass of curls, and sapphire eyes that were coolly intelligent. Her gentle smile that didn't always reach her eyes, except when she looked at Jepar.

"No, I'm a typical male," Cougar pointed out. "If you want I can be refined and chat about international politics, or deep and meaningful philosophical topics-"

"So, lingerie," Lisa cut in, grinning at the lamia. He looked unfairly good, she had to admit, even if his long body was covered in bruises from windsurfing, and sunburn from stupidity. Not muscled in the sleek, healthy way Jepar was, but lean and rangy.

"Hey, where is Toya?" Jepar asked, frowning. "I haven't seen her all morning."

Lisa shrugged. "She left a note saying she'd gone out. Who knows? Maybe she's found herself a man."

"One that gets up this early?" Cougar snorted. "I didn't think there was anyone else who had our Toya's godawful habit of waking with the sunrise. Oh, Thom rang and said his kooky cousin just got here, and is going to drag him along to school tomorrow - thrills - and we're to be as normal as possible."

"Um, define normal?" Jepar said from where he hung upside down.

And that, Lisa thought, said it all.

X - X - X - X - X

For a moment, Chatoya could breathe, and enjoy the refreshing sensation of not being attacked by an otherworldly spirit.

"This unleashing of evil beings is getting irritating," a voice said behind her, and because it was slow and drowsy, she didn't recognise it at first. "Once I can put down to idiocy. Twice and I have to think you're trying to give me some kind of message."

She turned, nerves and shame mixing in her stomach. Here came the consequences.

Blue looked dreadful. He leant on the altar, and his skin was crimson, darkened by his own blood from head to foot. His head was down, and she saw him take one, two, three deep breaths.

He looked up slowly, oh so slowly.

Here was her revenge. Somehow, it tasted sour in her mouth.

Even with his face obscured, the cast of his features was still undeniably stunning. Chatoya found it difficult to find a good side. Blue could pull off blood-soaked, divine demon.

There seemed to be something crucially unfair about this.

His eyes burned in his face, a deep clear sapphire. "You may be my soulmate," he said very softly, "but I promise you, you won't be much longer."

He moved in that unbelievably fast and boneless way he had, and-

Slammed into Aspen.

Chatoya edged around until she could see Aspen's face - he looked absolutely terrified, but he stood his ground. "Please don't hurt her!" Aspen said wildly. "I l-like her. She h-helped me. Sh-she helped you."

"Trying to kill me does not construe helping," Blue snapped. "Do I look like I have a deathwish?"

Aspen grinned nervously, scampered backwards and looked at Blue, laddered with cuts, his skin scarlet with blood, his eyes burning hellishly.

"Not so much a w-wish as a d-deep and burning d-desire," he ventured, his voice becoming steadier. "Look, c-considering how you treated her, I'm not surprised she wants to p-pulverise you."

Blue skinned back his lips and hissed. His eyes were no longer cool, or calm, or arrogant, but disturbingly vicious.

"Oh, don't try that eerie subhuman shit on me," Aspen said, relaxing. As if he had done this before. "I've known you since we were kids. Save it for the customers."

Blue hit him casually, yet it knocked Aspen to the floor.

"Stop it!" Chatoya shouted, and surprised herself by stepping over Aspen to glare at him. "It's between you and me." That's the rule, she wanted to say. But we've both broken it today by bringing Aspen into it.

Strange, she hadn't known they had rules.

"Stop bullying him," she said furiously. "Or I'll...I'll..."

"What?" Blue snarled, and she heard the sound rumble in his throat.

A hand tugged on her ankle. Chatoya looked down, and realised Aspen had each of them by the foot.

"I see any sign of imminent demises," Aspen said with what might have been sternness if he wasn't so petrified, "and both of you get a broken ankle. Don't think I won't."

"If I was feeling normal, you would _not_ threaten me," Blue snapped.

"Always kick a man while he's down, that's what I say," was the reply, though Aspen was looking distinctly queasy. "Please?"

She realised then just how much that wraith had taken out of Blue. She knew little about them, only that they were supposed to be able to suck the living soul right out of you, in which case it must have gone hungry. But surely even vampires couldn't lose so much blood and be unaffected.

Their eyes met, drawn by the magnetic appeal of loathing. There was nothing like a deep and abiding loathing to remind you how alive you were. It wasn't hatred, which was only love turned on its head, but a far more deeply rooted, coldly logical emotion. Hatred was charged, crazed, passionate. Loathing was rational, thoughtful, unchanging, frosty.

His gaze wavered, a bit hazy, as if someone had smudged the colour in with soot.

I'll be damned: he has a weak spot. And here I was thinking it was time to dig out the kryptonite.

"All right," he said through gritted teeth.

Chatoya gave her soulmate her brightest, most artificial and shark-like smile. "Sure," she agreed, and promptly put both hands on his shoulders and put her free knee to good use.

She wasn't expecting him to collapse.

There was a moment where she thought she saw fury blossom in his eyes, then they fell shut and he just keeled over backwards. One thud, and she and Aspen were both on their feet, staring open-mouthed.

"I didn't know you could fight dirty," an awed Aspen said. "Is he out? I don't think that's ever happened."

"Have I killed him?" she said warily. She couldn't see him breathing. "Oh, please tell me my prayers have been answered."

The vampire boy squinted at Blue. "He looks kind of still. I can't sense anything…you're the healer."

"You want me to heal Blue?"

Unusually contrite eyes were turned to her. "Look, he's my friend, okay? I haven't had many of them. Blue's the one who got me out of the enclave, and I can forgive him a lot for that."

That sounded a little too nice to be Blue. "Since when has he been into random acts of kindness?"

She tried to see through Aspen's pleasantly blank expression, through to the wreckage of a person he had let her glimpse. But nothing, just a shrug.

She could only feel glad she wouldn't have to use his weakness as a lever. She would have done it because it was necessary, but she wouldn't have enjoying opening his wounds and clawing at them until he bled.

"Why should I heal him?" she said instead. "He's a monster."

Aspen arched his eyebrows. "Ever wonder why?"

"No" she snapped, too quickly.

Of course she had wondered why. She had seen inside his soul, a bleak arctic landscape, and seen the dark shadows that moved through beneath the ice with sinister promise. She could not comprehend how he could live so loveless and so cold.

"Maybe you should."

"No," she said flatly, "what I should do is walk out of here. I should never have come here, I should never have agreed to this insane idea, I should never have had a soulmate like _him_."

She stopped, shocked. She had argued with Blue, and she had fought him in every way she could, and she had complained about it, thought it unfair, but she had never said that it was wrong.

That meant that everything she believed was wrong. It meant that her world was not in some way made better because she could hope that someone was out there making choices for her, guiding her life to some kind of purpose, making her happy.

Deep down, like everyone else, she was sure that life was supposed to be happy.

But something - not someone, never someone - like Blue obliterated that. Because whatever else he was, she knew that Blue Malefici was not and had never been happy.

The thought made her freeze. How had she known that? Yet, as she tested the idea, she knew it was right.

"Are you sure?"

Yes, she thought, Isis, yes. He wasn't unhappy either, but caught in some sort of limbo state that had...nothing. Static, ageless, endless nothingness.

Then she realised Aspen was still talking.

"What would you have been if Blue hadn't ever met you?" he asked. "Would you be here? Would you know the people you know, or live the life you do? I know I wouldn't." Aspen paused, and she could feel him struggling for the words like a butterfly wrenching its way from a cocoon. "I...was saved by Blue," he said quietly. "It sounds stupid, I guess, but he took me out of that enclave where I would never have been anything but afraid. I would have rotted there. Every day I was there, I could feel myself dying. And he stopped that. And maybe all he put in its place was death, but that was better than the fear. He knew that."

"I doubt it," she answered, but a little wave of unease stirred low in her stomach, barely a blink of a feeling. "Blue doesn't do anything for anyone else. He doesn't feel emotions like pity or fear."

"Maybe he doesn't now," Aspen said, "but that doesn't mean he didn't once."

"He doesn't feel anything."

If he felt, he wouldn't have done the things he had. She felt sure of it. Mere hatred could never motivate such wholesale slaughter, and perhaps he took pleasure in killing, but there was no anger there, no fear, no loathing, nothing but a steady disregard for all other things living.

"You're alive, aren't you?" Aspen said guilelessly. "I was with him when he came to hunt you down first time. He was very set on killing you. Oh..." Enlightenment dawned on him. And it really did dawn; first on his mouth, one corner tucking in, and then beaming through his eyes with the same kind of joy as a child who had just understood a difficult problem. "The soulmate thing?"

"Unfortunately." She glared down at Blue's recumbent form. "It didn't stop him killing my family."

It was strange, but those events seemed terribly distant from her now, almost as though they had happened to another girl called Chatoya Irkil. She'd seen so much hurt and death, and she wondered if the thing she had always been most of afraid of was happening again: that she was becoming hardened, and if soon, she'd lose her compassion and her regret.

"Oh..." No futile apology; Aspen was an assassin. It would never occur to him to be sorry. "But I still don't want him to die. He _is_ a complete and utter bastard, but there have to be people like him in the world."

"Yes, as a reminder that contraception is important," she said flatly.

Aspen grinned. "Yeah...but...if he dies, what happens to you? If you won't do it for good reasons, do it for mean and selfish ones."

That made her feel small. She liked to think she tried to be a good person, even if it didn't always work, different from Blue. If Aspen could see something good...well...maybe it was there. Microscopically.

"Oh all right," she said grumpily, and knelt down to check his pulse.

She should have known better than to agree.

Blue's hand whipped out and round her throat, and he opened his eyes. They were utterly alert.

"Now," he began icily. "While I have you in a position where there will be no opportunity to cause me severe pain and impair my chances of leaving any heirs, let's get some things straight."

"You're fine?" an outraged Aspen demanded.

"Peachy," Blue drawled. "And Martin, if you even think of interfering in this little tête-à-tête, the same thing will happen to you as happens to a good deal of your namesakes."

"You'll plant him in soil and donate the profits to charity?" Chatoya said before she could stop herself. Oh god, what was it about Blue that made her so suicidal?

He sat up in one slithery motion, so they were kneeling face to face, and his grip tightened. "Half right. Don't try and be funny; you really can't pull it off," he advised witheringly.

His stare was still that smudged, almost wanton colour, and she was startled at how much it changed his face. Normally his eyes were narrow, intense, hard as gemstones chipped from the icy north. But now, they were an inky colour that unfurled like a swallow's wing over his pupils.

It served only to heighten the effect of his mouth, which was far too lavish and sensuous for the slanting cheekbones and hard jaw. It was as if he had been carved from ice, and then kissed by fire.

"I'd like you to know I didn't appreciate that little move you just pulled." He leaned closer, and the caked blood cracked, like crazy paving done in crimson and white. His voice was almost inaudible. "It hurt."

"Did it?" she said. "I could swear that was meant to improve your posture."

The grip on her throat was almost unbearable, and she found herself clawing at his hand.

"I'm trying to be reasonable," Blue said. "But you're making it rather difficult. We can discuss this sensibly-"

She spat at him.

"-or we could just move on to spontaneous violence," he snapped.

"Oh, how new," she got out around a rapidly shrinking breathing space. "Please, surprise me."

"Blue..." Aspen, breathy and close by, edging nearer. "Just because she kicked your ass, that's no reason to go all...all...uncontrolled. She kicked my ass as well, but you don't see me trying to kill her."

Remind him of his weaknesses, that'll calm him down, she thought. What are you, mad?

But then the chokehold lessened a little, and she found him watching her.

That stare raked along her soul like flint and where it lodged, sparks drenched the air and set fear burning until she wanted to scream with the sense of premonition it sent through her.

He shifted his grip upwards, under her chin.

"You beat Aspen in single combat," he said calmly. "You nearly beat me in single combat, even if I was not entirely conscious."

"So?" Chatoya said, not liking the tone in his voice at all.

"I guess she did," Aspen said wonderingly. She didn't know what they were talking about, or why both of them were looking at her so intently. "But...she's good."

"What are you on about?" she demanded.

Blue chuckled. "That's why she'll do it. She can't walk away, not knowing she's got a chance to change it all."

She scowled at him. "What?"

"Run Pursang," he said. "You beat Aspen in single combat."

"Oh no..." She grabbed his hand, trying to push it from under her chin. "I'm not going to be part-"

She yelped as the soulmate link opened, and she was swamped with thoughts and feelings and schemes, hundreds of schemes as he considered this new scenario, so much potential-

"Stop that!"

He stopped, looking at her with a perfectly innocent expression that reminded her of nothing so much as Cougar, pretending that he wasn't playing games with her.

She got her breath back after a moment. "That's not fair," she said. "You can't just...just use me like that. You can't suddenly say that now you want something from me you'll use this insane soulmate link. You're not my soulmate. You're just some guy who's got a...a radio channel into my soul, and maybe you can listen in, but you're not on the same frequency."

Silence. Had she finally reached him?

"There was probably meant to be profundity in there somewhere," Blue said dryly. "But as far as I can tell, all it means is that you're tuned in to Radio Ga-ga."

"I think she wants you to stop screwing with her, Blue," Aspen put in helpfully.

Blue's eyes met hers, and for a beat that skipped fast as a stone, were hopelessly warm and wicked. "Interesting turn of phrase."

She caught her breath, astonished at the change-

And it disappeared. Just ice again.

"He's right," she said, unable to drag her eyes away. Oh god, was she actually searching for that little flicker of life? "You can't use this connection to take away my choices. I don't want to be like you."

"Rich, powerful, successful and good-looking, you mean?"

She wanted to slap the smile right off his face. "Arrogant, cold, a killer and dead inside was more what I was going for. With a massively expanded ego."

"Chatoya?" Aspen shifted from foot to foot like a nervy horse. "You don't have a choice. Blue's right about that much. You beat me. It's...yours now. Pursang's yours."

"I don't want it!" she said violently. "I didn't do it to beat you. You know that!"

Blue's fingers slid up to brush back her hair. He was almost cupping her face, and she wanted to tell him to stop it because it was just another thing distracting her from getting out of this tangled mess.

"That's not the point," he said, almost gently. "What you intended doesn't matter. What you did does. Perhaps it's difficult for you because you're particularly dense, but understand this. Pursang, in all its entirety, with its eight hundred and forty-seven assassins worldwide, with its scrolls and its spells and its fortune - it is yours do exactly what you wish with."

_Exactly what you wish_.

Suddenly, she understood what he was saying, holding it up like a lantern in this pitch-black future.

She could use Pursang to put things right.

No. It was just a trick he was using to tempt her. A way to make her do, as ever, what he wanted.

But...

"We'll give you time to decide," Blue said, standing easily. Looking up at him, she could easily believe he was something unholy and unreal. "Until Samhain festival."

"That's only a week!" she said angrily. "How am I suppose to decide that in a week?"

He shrugged. "Welcome to the real world," he told her. "It's got teeth, and it'll eat you alive if you don't watch out."

No stabbing contempt or mockery in his words. He sounded like he believed it. Blue, who had nothing to fear from anyone...who the world had never done any harm.

He turned to go - then hesitated, and turned back. "Why didn't you raise him?" he asked.

The man. The one who Nightfire had worshipped, who had made this place. And this strange, unimaginable idea that she couldn't quite believe, even though she knew it had to be true.

"He wasn't there," she answered, and couldn't stop the respectful awe creeping in. "He's still alive."

_Deep within I'm shaken by the violence of existing._


	7. Chapter Six

My thanks to all the most brilliant and bodacious stars of you who reviewed last time round - you made my days:-) Thank you:

**- Aquilla, Danel, Dark Princess, Eleyne, Mandy, Innocent, Carina, Queen Kat, Diomede, insane **and the superb **S.T.A.R.S member. ** Thank you so much!

Lyrics come from _Searching _by China Black (Album: Born)

Hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Six**

_Searching, when I'm lost and need to find myself; where this road will lead no one can tell  
Searching, for that something I've left behind, made me see that I've been far too blind._

The evening in Ryars Valley crept in like a thief, slow and stealthy, the same way sleep stole over Chatoya as she lay in the garden. Cougar was crammed beside her in a hammock, his face softened by slumber; all his cynicism had drained away, and without the harsh gold glare of his eyes, he seemed almost innocent.

She had stumbled back to the house in the late afternoon after she had walked and walked and walked, trying to somehow cope with the opportunity that lay before her.

Pursang. An organisation of the most skilled and powerful people on earth. Ancient, immense, and now...perhaps hers. Pursang, the name that meant pure blood, and with it, undiluted power.

She had thought about it on until her head hurt, feeling aged and unutterably wearied by it all.

Finally, her feet had turned ever homewards, as they inevitably did.

Cougar's opening greeting had been, "Well, if it isn't Ah-lace in Wonderbra-land," and she had been so flummoxed by it that she had forgotten Pursang completely, and only stared at him dumbly.

"I've been hearing some very interesting things about you," he continued, and the meltingly sinful look in his eyes reminded her of Blue, saying something unnervingly similar. "Chatoya Irkil, why didn't you tell me you're just as hedonistic as I am? Think of all the fun we could have had together!"

Jepar and Lisa were looking guilty. "Sorry," Lisa said, fiddling with the bright beads plaited into her hair The made vampire grimaced delicately. "He pried it out of us."

"Pried what exactly?" she said, wondering which of her embarrassing secrets the vampire now knew.

Jepar coughed. "Uh...Midsummer two years back. Just what the chocolate joke is..." He shook his head from where he was shamelessly catching the rays on the high branches of the cherry tree.

"And why we always do that hand-gesture when Cougar's done something stupid..." Lisa sighed. "Sorry."

Cougar's sullen mouth was tilting upwards in the wonderfully sensual way that had removed many a doubt and many a garment. He put his hands behind his head, and gave a little stretch that flexed his muscles. "Come hither, Toya, and let me explain to you the proper uses of chocolate."

She knew how it was expected to go. She was supposed to refuse, then he would tease her mercilessly until he forgot, or became disinterested, and everyone would get a lot of amusement from it.

But she was too weary to play cute games with Cougar, so she said, "All right," and strolled - no, swayed towards him. At his open-mouthed disbelief, she put a swing into her hips until she was in front of him.

Then she leaned down, over his astonished face, loving the combination of admiration and shock that lay over his features, and breathed one word in a way she had never dared before. "Explain."

He had stared, fumbling for words, but then she hadn't been able to contain the laughter that bubbled out of her. That had triggered his off-beat sense of humour and he had pulled her down into the hammock, mock-pummelling her until they both nearly fell out.

She had ended up not being bothered to move, chasing the sleep she had lost the night before. Cougar had a pair of sunglasses - Alisha's, she suspected - hiding his eyes, and she could tell from the way his body relaxed inch by inch that he was drowsy.

"You two look so cute," Lisa's mirthful voice said, though she sounded distant.

"Whatever," Cougar muttered sleepily, shifting onto his side so he could thieve more of the hammock and letting her use his arm as a pillow. "Y'okay there, Toya?"

"Fine," she managed, already half-asleep. It was so nice to feel safe, knowing that there would be no Blue to invade her home, not with the others here, and no dead to raise, no assassins to cope with, nothing ahead but the prospect of some sound shuteye.

Dimly, she thought she heard Jepar's hissed, "Quick, get the camera!" and later, a strange clicking sound, but maybe that was just her imagination.

X - X - X - X - X

Blue Malefici slammed the door to his house vengefully, and then leaned back against it and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor. His broken leg, healing little by little, shot stabs of white-hot pain through his body that he ignored with years of training.

His eyes narrowed into razor slits that shone the same eerie blue as moonlight on metal. And then they closed, and he lowered his head with a hiss.

The little minx. The _fiend_.

He was, he had to admit, grudgingly impressed.

No one had done him this sort of damage since...since he joined Nightfire. He ached all over, and his blood clanged in his ears with all the ferocity of an overenthusiastic bell-ringer.

Nothing that wouldn't heal in a day. But that wasn't the point.

The point was that she had played him at his own game, and done it damn well. He'd thought she might try something, even that she might raise something else, but assumed he could easily cope with it.

He had needed her to fight and defeat Aspen, and had quietly convinced Aspen that a bit of madness would be in order at some point. However, his timely possession had sorted _that_ out.

In fact, everything had gone swimmingly.

He just hadn't foreseen her summoning that wraith. Or that his powers wouldn't work. Nightfire had had only one piece of advice for dealing with wraiths: don't do it. But he had, and he had survived. Yet-

Chatoya Irkil had played him at his own game, and done it far too well.

He got up, grimacing as a cut opened on his thigh. This wasn't even funny.

Well, it had got him what he wanted. She would take over Pursang, and from then on, it would just take a nudge at her emotions, a little push in the right direction, a little reverse psychology to make her blinded by fury, and she would do whatever he willed.

Just another game.

He needed to rest. To let his body heal, and to see today's events with a fresh eye because at the moment all he could think was-

She had played him at his own game, and done it with more skill than anyone else.

Blue got as far as his couch before his leg gave out, and he just collapsed, pushing back the agony with dragon power. All he wanted was some peace, and then an opportunity to push his scheme into action.

His mind was already drifting away, but before he plummeted into slumber, one last thought splintered the distending clouds of his thoughts like white lightning.

She had played him at his own game.

And she had nearly won.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya had the odd sensation of floating in a darkened sea that shivered all about her. Soulless, and slow, the tide was pulling her somewhere, but she could feel nothing bar the slide of silkiness on her arms.

This is a dream, she told herself. Of course it's just a dream.

"Someone once told me that dreams are the truth that our minds can't bear," a voice whispered. It fell into her head, chilly and acid. But she didn't remember Blue ever saying it. "Let me tell you the truth."

Flashes like reflections on glass, spiking into her head, illuminating things she thought she had forgotten.

Herself, in the centre of a cyclone, with so much rain drenching her that she appeared to have been varnished in it. Drowning her memories the only way she could, and drowning herself with them.

That had been the first time she had challenged her soulmate. Had she lost or won? She wasn't sure it mattered. It only mattered that she had stood against all that he was and represented. She had feared him, but still faced him and refused to submit to him. It wasn't an experience he had very often.

"The world hurts," his voice said, splaying fear through her like a hand of ice opening in her gut.

But it was so dull, a voice belonging to someone trampled and tattered. Close, as though he was behind her. And now, other sounds beat in on her; a sound like a dog rasping, and the faint hiss of rushing water.

Her sense of touch returned violently, and she gasped, inhaling icy, stale air that burned the back of her throat, springing tears from her eyes. Opening them, she found herself before a door.

Just a door. The hissing was the torches either side of it, clasped in metal sconces and tickling the side of her face with burning fingers. Not a very forbidding door, but old-fashioned and a fraction ajar. Tantalisingly ajar; she found herself leaning in to glimpse the scene within.

There was a boy, crouched close at someone's feet. In his hand, a glint of metal, chafing on a length of thick rotting rope. That explained the odd rasping sound, scraping over her ears. Her hand thrust the door open before she was even aware as the scene slid before her eyes like a curtain drawn aside, and-

Someone had been crucified.

Her vision disappeared under a wash of black shock, and for a moment she thought she was waking, her mind lifting clean out of her body in sheer shock at what she saw.

But she blinked, and her breath came easier, the blackness rolled up, and she could focus on what lay before her and try to push her reaction aside.

Not crucified. Not properly, anyway. Someone had simply roped a boy to a wall - a young boy, whose face she couldn't see because it was turned down to the other boy, the young one who was trying to free him.

The one who spun wildly, and bared his teeth at her, raising the saw he was holding.

"Cougar?" she gawked.

Some presence of mind came back to her as she stepped into this tiny room to slam the door shut. Because if that was Cougar, then this was the Redfern enclave, and some monsters walked even in dreams.

He snarled, but it was a small, uncertain sound. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

It was Cougar. A tousled child awkwardly tall for his age, with overlong spiky hair that he half-hid behind. But his eyes, peering out from that mussed dark pelt, were the same. Sullen, a little afraid.

"I'm..." She paused, searching for words. "A friend."

"Yeah? I've heard that before."

There was a shadow on one side of his face, disappearing into his hair. Chatoya felt her stomach go cold.

"What's that on your face?" she asked, praying she was wrong. She touched her left temple. "Here."

Looking mystified, he scraped back the hair. A massive bruise sprawled across his forehead, yellow and faded as melted butter, easily the size of her fist. "Round here, we call it 'skin'."

"That bruise," she managed, trying to keep her voice controlled.

"Oh." Cougar shrugged. He couldn't have been more than nine or ten. "I annoyed Father last week. Shouldn't have insulted him while he was next to the log pile, really." His eyes were a fraction warmer, less suspicious. "Why does it bother you so much? It ain't like it's never happened before."

Why was there a lump in her throat? This was only a dream. Her mind playing tricks, picking up on whatever vulnerability she thought Cougar had. It wasn't real.

Funny, she meant to say nothing, but the words jumped straight form her mind to her lips. "Because you're a child!" she hurled angrily. "You're a person, not a...toy to be thrown around."

"You really believe that," he marvelled. His mouth twisted into confusion, before he stood back, appraising her, then nodded as if he had decided something. "Can you help me?" he asked bluntly, gesturing to the boy. "He's been up there days now and I don't think I can free him on my own."

"Of course," she said, forcing down her horror. And as she got closer, a rank, dying smell crawled into her nose. But even that was forgotten as she noticed two grisly marks caught her eye on the hanging boy's wrists. There seemed to be dull little circles in the midst of the blood-

Someone had put nails through his wrists.

The nausea rose in her stomach, and she spun away from him to retch in the corner, her skin gone clammy. How could they, gods, how could they to a _child_?

She didn't want to, not at all, but turned back, wiping at her mouth, and looked down. Through his feet too.

She had thought she was angry before, but now fury scorched down through her body like lava spat from a volcano, swamping her, but mingled with a heartrending, awful pity for this pair.

"_Who did this_?" she asked, and her voice rang like a hammer on a gong.

Cougar stared up at her, before he quietly put the saw on the floor: he had finished hacking through the ropes. Chatoya had no idea how livid her eyes were, green fire in a face as pale as a swan's wing

"My father," he answered. There was a dreadful guilt, a shame in his voice. "I couldn't get to him sooner, or I would have." He sniffed, and scrubbed at his face angrily. "I didn't want to leave him here!"

The hanging boy was dressed in rags and tags and riddled with bruises, far too many of them fresh. She could see his ribs, see the desperate slenderness of his wrists and legs. His face still hung down, for all the world like Salvador Dali's painting.

The nails had to come out. That was first. But would her magic work in a dream?

She reached to the pool inside her where it welled, and felt it rise in her blood, more a taste, a herbal freshness, than a feeling. Not quite real magic, but the dream of the power she possessed.

Pulling out the nails was easy for her. And what amazed her was how very still the boy was. When the last was pulled out, he collapsed from the wall, and the two of them caught him, laid him on the floor.

"How long has he been here?" she asked as she checked his pulse. Beating, though oddly slow and even.

The child shrugged, biting his lip. "Three days, maybe more." His voice was tiny, with almost none of the liquid darkness that spilled from Cougar's voice like rich coffee. "I wasn't here when Father put him up. He's gone himself again. He always does when they punish him. It's like he leaves his body, and it don't matter what they do, he don't feel any of it. Or if he does, he don't react."

That would certainly infuriate the Redferns. Their pride was legendary, and their cruelty renowned.

"Why was this done?" she said, healing the breaks in the boy's wrists and ankles, which she could easily loop her thumb and middle finger around. Her tones dripped with contempt. "What could be so terrible that your damned father could nail a little boy to a wall?"

Cougar looked straight at her, his mouth half-open. "You ain't been here before, have you?"

She tilted the boy's head. So many bruises she couldn't even see the colour of his skin, yet there was something...familiar about him, shouting to her though she couldn't make out the words. "No."

"He's a bastard," the lamia child said flatly, knotting his hands together. A long gash spiralled from his elbow up under the shoulder of the tunic he wore. She had an urge to take him away from the enclave and give him a decent meal and a decent home. "They use him for sport. He's only half-Redfern."

The disquieted feeling grew, until the voice was screaming in her head.

"Blue don't deserve what they've done to him," Cougar said bitterly.

She leapt up with a yelp, staring at the boy and realising now why his features were so familiar. Dear goddess, that was _Blue_? That pathetic, mutilated child?

Blue's eyes snapped open.

And they were neither young, nor afraid, nor wounded at all. They were bright with wicked satisfaction, bright with promise and burning like stars.

"Here's the truth," he said, not in a child's voice but a darkly amused purr. "Can you bear it?"

X - X - X - X - X

"Oh god."

She sat up without even realising that it was the shadowy grey of morning's first breath, and that she was still outside in the hammock until it rocked dangerously, and she had to steady herself on a tree.

From the corner of her eye, she saw two dual glints, like distant beacons. Only there was very little distant about Cougar Redfern as he raised his head up to reveal sharp and predatory splendour.

"You were in my dream," he said vaguely, then his eyes widened, spilling firefly light out into the night. "You were! It was you, all grown up and-"

"You were on the enclave," she cut in urgently. "-and you were helping-"

"Blue. I know! But that was years and years ago..."

"They really did that to him?" she demanded.

The vampire shrugged. "Yeah. He didn't care," he dismissed, and she wondered if that could really be true, even of Blue. "But...how were you there?"

They stopped, and stared at each other. His face had become a tableau of planes and hollows coloured in gold and shadows, wondrous as a pharaoh's death mask. Too wondrous.

He has a lean and hungry look about him, she thought, and the image unsettled her. Cougar succumbed to his instincts without fail. A being of intuition and impulses, it was his strength - and his weakness.

She realised she could hear his breath, ragged and gnawing at the silence.

"It's okay," Cougar said, giving her a shade of a grin. Unfortunately, all it did was show her his fangs, a dull milky colour in the dark. "I've got it under control. And besides...someone's fed from you pretty recently."

"How...how do you know that?"

He touched her mouth lightly, eyelids shading his scorching stare. "I can sense it. It was Blue, wasn't it?"

Mute, she nodded, unable to think of any kind of plausible denial. "He caught up with me."

"I could kill him for you," he offered.

This was not her angry, daytime Cougar. This was the one that she had never seen, the one she unconsciously avoided. She didn't stay around Jepar when the moon was full, she didn't go near Alisha when she hunted, and she avoided Lisa and Cougar when they had that disturbing famished look.

Right then, he reminded her of Blue.

"No..." She tried to gather her thoughts. "I don't think you could. I don't want you to try either."

A little low sound, maybe a growl, but maybe just her ears making up sounds. Please, don't let it be him. "Maybe I want to try. Do you know what he's done?"

"You're scaring me," she told him gently.

He blinked, and the golden eyes became a little dimmer. "Am I? I don't mean to. I guess my control isn't as good as I thought." He chuckled and *hat was her Cougar. "I can't believe they left us out here. Do they really trust me with you?" He hiked an eyebrow up suggestively. "You know what they say - Redfern at night, ladies' delight..."

"Redfern in the morning," Chatoya said dryly, "public health warning. And of course they trust you - you've got a soulmate, and we're just not that way."

"We could be, you know."

There was something in his voice, a tiny bit of wistfulness that made her pause for a moment and feel uneasy. Because it sounded as if he wasn't merely kidding.

No, she decided. He has a soulmate. He has to be joking.

"I don't think so," she said cheerfully, passing it off. "What _would_ Ria say if she heard you now?"

He didn't laugh. "Nothing. She's not talking to me. Again. I'm getting really sick of it, Toya. I'm not perfect. Why can't she see that?"

"Hon..." she said, using Lisa's pet phrase, "it'll work out." She ruffled his hair. "You're just hungry, that's all. When did you last feed?"

"Not that long ago," he muttered, but he was curled up as though very cold, or in pain. And she knew it wasn't cold because the nights here were still sizzling, even in autumn. "A fortnight, maybe."

"Oh, you _fool_," she said, but couldn't be mad when he looked so wretched. "Ria should have noticed."

"Ria don't notice much about me now." A bitter twist to his mouth, and the gold light disappearing as he closed his eyes totally. He _was_ tired. It had taken Cougar Redfern a while to crack his habit of 'ain't' and 'don't', but he almost never forgot now. "She's thinking of leaving."

"Cougar..."

"But there's something worse," he said, even more bleakly.

For someone like Cougar, it should all have been easy. He was stunning, a boy to make heads turn and hearts ring, and bitingly funny, smarter than he ever let on...but somehow, it never seemed to go quite right.

His eyes opened, and the look on his face was utterly haunted.

"I wouldn't miss her," he whispered. "Toya, I don't love her. I don't know if I ever did. I don't know if it was just the soulmate link making me that way, but I don't feel the same about her now. I haven't for a while now. Ever since...since Blue came back, and I realised that you don't have to love your soulmate. It's not a rule."

He swallowed, and she could sense how hard it was for him to admit this, so she only listened.

"I started to wonder, you know, just what it was I loved about her. And when I came down to it, the only reason I had was because she was my soulmate." He stared determinedly at the sky. "We don't understand each other. And we don't trust each other. It's like...like you've been waiting for lightning, and all you're getting is static electricity."

She had to grin at that. It was an utterly dreadful and utterly Cougar thing to say.

"I don't think I can love anyone," he said tiredly. "Maybe I'm just like Blue, and I've been lying to myself all along." His face was frightened, the face of that boy in her dream. "Toya...what if I am like him?"

She stroked his hair, searching for the right words. "You're not," she soothed. "If you were Blue, I'd be a rapidly accelerating blur." His wan smile warmed her. "Blue wouldn't ask before he fed from me."

"I didn't ask," he said, baffled.

"I know." Chatoya paused, and looked at him, bound up around his starvation, so, so worried that he was the one thing he could never ever be. "That's why I'm offering." His eyebrows dipped in confusion. "You can feed from me. I don't mind." She grinned at him. "Especially if it means I can go back to sleep after."

He looked astounded, and she was pleased to have surprised him. She couldn't solve his relationship problems but she could help with this one, and put words to deed by sweeping back her hair.

"Don't worry," she added mischievously. "If anyone asks, I'll say we got up to no good."

X - X - X - X - X

Sean Doyle woke up slowly, morning light caressing his face. Here. In this new, yet not new, place.

He flung back the covers to get up, and stared out of the window. It was as beautiful as he remembered. The summer green of the valley was melting into autumn's array of gold and brown as the world turned inexorably on.

In the distance, the lake glowed a tempting blue-grey. It had always been his favourite haunt, an endless cooling rush among the fiery hell of the world back then.

Yes...he remembered.

The amber of his eyes seemed to have trapped not mosquitoes, but memories, holding them frozen forever. Not a carefree boy now, no easy smile or soft Irish lilt that balanced all the imperfections of his face; like the dented nose and long face, or the drawn brows that made him seem so serious.

Thom would scarcely have recognised his ebullient cousin, but Kirsty would have told him that there was one very straightforward and very fundamental reason for this.

There was a small dresser to the side of the window, and he peered in his face at it.

Here was where the reality lay.

The eyes were not truly amber, but a bright and pulsing orange offset by the deep caramel skin and the rough, bristling tiger-stripes of his hair. No flaws here, except for a dimple in one cheek and a slant to his mouth that said this boy might be rather too frivolous for anyone's good. And of course, the teeth.

All were fiendishly sharp, a little too pointed, and had a quality which suggested predator.

The mirror always showed your true nature. Mirrors and videos and cameras. Some said it was because they took a bit of your soul, which was eternal truth. He just thought that magic couldn't touch them.

He was home. In the place which he had created, where he had been worshipped and revered. Back, after thirty thousand years.

Fireblade the dragon, who now was only Iager, had come home to Ryars Valley at last.

_All the many roads I've travelled, come so far and done so much  
It leads me back to you._


	8. Chapter Seven

Free time has triumphed over work, and allowed this early update. My thanks to the most wondrous and exalted of ye who reviewed last time - I adored hearing your thoughts, and was stunned! I shall be mailing you my high-tech Heath Ledger clone very soon! Thank you:

**Danel, Mandy, Dark Princess, Innocent, Diomede, Aquilla, Eleyne, Magelet, Cynical Leaf, Starseeker, Starwisher, Dianna, Tough Fluff, Kendal, Himiko **and finally the awesome **Queen Kat**.

The lyrics come from Matchbox 20's 'Push' (Album: Yourself or Someone Like You), a song which has not left my iPod for the past month, and isn't likely to. It's an utterly fabulous piece of music. Hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Seven**

_Said I don't know if I've ever been good enough;  
I'm a little bit rusty and I think my head is caving in. _

"Ugh," Cougar Redfern said as they walked - or in his case, mooched - into school on Monday morning. "Why do we keep coming back here?"

"Well," Lisa Ochai said sweetly, "in your case, because you flunked junior year."

He scowled from behind slumped barbs of raven hair. Despite the worn black T-shirt and fraying khakis, despite the dishevelled hair, five - or in this case, nine - o' clock shadow and hollow eyes, Cougar Redfern looked undeniably fabulous, and knew it.

Chatoya also knew it was due to her blood, and that she had earned Cougar's respect and protection, two things about as common as the sabre-toothed tiger and roughly as savage.

She knew this because he had an arm flung carelessly around her waist, and was glaring at anyone who happened to have their eyes fixed in her general direction.

"Blue is not going to send anyone to jump me here," she muttered to him. "Relax."

Hooded hazel eyes began to lighten to the dangerous gold. "You don't know Blue like I do. He's sneaky-_whatthehellareyoulookingat_?"

The boy, who Chatoya couldn't remember seeing around before, had long, long eyelashes that lifted upwards at the ferocious snarl. "The latest recruit of the Inquisition, apparently," he answered in a lusciously soft Irish accent. "And as it happens, that poster behind you."

Chatoya glanced over her shoulder, and saw the advertising for the Samhain Ball.

"Ignore him," she advised the boy, whose mocking eyebrows arched. He didn't have a handsome face - far from it - but there was something about it she liked. A little spark of mischief under the serious expression that she recognised. "He's like a bad episode of the Flintstones this early-"

But Cougar stalked off, dragging her with him before she could finish the sentence.

"Question," Lisa said, catching up with them, and sharing a warmly confused look with Chatoya, who just shrugged back. "What's with the Me Big Caveman act?"

The lamia snorted. "I didn't like the look of that guy."

I did, Chatoya thought wistfully, with a last glance back. He wasn't looking at her, but trying to open his locker, the light reflecting off chestnut hair with a little flick at the end that said it hadn't been cut in too long. Then he glanced up, and winked.

She felt herself light up in response, smiling at him.

"Is he _smiling_ at you?" Cougar said dangerously. "Don't you trust him, Toya. When men smile at you, they only want one thing. I am one, I know these things. And-_whatdoyouwantapartfromapunch_?"

Sharla Ferrars flinched back at the vampire's venomous stare. "Huh? I was looking at the new guy..."

Chatoya gave her an apologetic look. She worked with Sharla, and liked her, and she certainly didn't deserve to be threatened by Cougar. "Cute, isn't he?"

"I don't know," the girl said, with a flick of her red hair. "He's not good-looking but he's...got something."

"Syphilis, probably," Cougar muttered darkly.

Sharla looked puzzled, and clung onto her folder as if it would protect her from the waves of general grumpiness radiating from Cougar. "Has he? What's that?"

Before Cougar could open his mouth and describe in graphic detail the symptoms, Lisa trod on his foot and somehow, completely accidentally, managed to put an elbow into his stomach as he bent over in pain.

"A disease," the made vampire explained briefly, as Cougar straightened up.

"Come on," Cougar said firmly, if breathlessly. "We are going to English, Ms Irkil. We both flunked and now we both have to pay the price."

"The difference being that you failed because you did nothing," Lisa said dryly, "and Toya didn't pass because Ms Felps hates her, and doesn't accept pneumonia as an acceptable excuse for failing your final."

"And quite right too," Cougar declared wickedly.

X - X - X - X - X

The people passed around her like silent ghosts. They weren't silent, of course, but to the girl, their voices were a formless wash, a sea of bleach that dragged the last vestiges of humanity from her.

She saw him then.

A flash of blue, a shocking streak of azure hell in her drab and colourless life. A wrongness that had been placed there, and that she had been paid to remove.

She sucked in her breath at the sight of the oh-so familiar face. All sharpness and sleekness, his skin that icy-white that she remembered so well. That she had touched, and tried to bruise in her struggles to escape.

It was futile with him. He swallowed you whole, and spat out the bare bones of what you once were.

But bones became fossils, and fossils had no life, but they survived. If you could survive him, there was nothing on this earth that could touch you. You could take and give life as you chose.

She took.

She drew close, letting the voices solidify in her hearing. Sound entered her world, joining the violent collision of snow and sky that he was. But keeping another mortal between them, the boy that Cougar Redfern had shouted at. Who seemed to be taking a long time to find something in his locker. Who-

Wasn't human. Interesting...but later, not now. Blue was important now.

"I'll call Jacqui," a boy was saying. "She'll want to meet my replacement."

Then the voice that was sin made sound. "A good choice, Martin."

She caught a glimpse of the other boy's head, three white streaks arrowing through dark hair. "Blue...Jacqui'll try to kill her. There's never been a witch who's led. Only vampires."

The laugh sent prickles of reaction throughout her. She gritted her teeth. To be so close, so tantalisingly near, yet to have to wait because here was neither time nor place...

"She'll try." Blue Malefici closed his locker, and she glimpsed his profile briefly. Sharpness and sleekness, except for the sumptuous mouth that she had once thought might mean there was water under the ice. "If Ms Irkil dies, it's easy. If she doesn't, it's fun. Either way, I win."

Yes, you're so used to winning, the girl thought. Do you even know how to lose?

X - X - X - X - X

English turned out to be more interesting than usual.

For one thing, Blue turned up.

As far as Chatoya could tell, in half the classes he'd been moved up a year, and in the other half, he didn't bother to turn up at all. Anything that relied on memory and logic - history, maths, science - he excelled at. Anything that required any sort of emotion and outpourings - English, French, sociology - he didn't make an effort with.

His arrival, with him looking distressingly hale and hazardous, caused a ripple through the class. From the corner of her eye, Chatoya saw a girl surreptitiously pull her top a little lower, while another rearranged her hair with calculated enticement. People smiled and nodded to him and didn't seem to care that all they got was an aloof look, a shrug, and occasionally a dry comment.

Can't you see he's a monster? she wanted to say. Kiss him, and you'll taste blood.

And it'll be yours.

He strolled in late, with a nonchalance that reminded her painfully of Cougar. She twisted to see her dark friend glowering at his half-brother, his hands snapping a pencil into pieces over and over.

The teacher turned a radioactive stare on him. Ms Felps was a shapeshifter, and one of the most unsociable pieces of inhumanity Chatoya had ever met. "Good lord, if it isn't Mr Malefici! Could it be that you have finally worked out what the handle on the door is for?"

Blue raised an eyebrow and stared back coldly. Chatoya could practically hear the air creaking where their eyes met.

"You have missed my last six lessons," the woman said in a voice harder than iron in the arctic. Her mouth had shrunk into a thin line, and the intrinsic Nightworld elegance, if not beauty, of her face was always destroyed by the anger that mottled her cheeks. "Why?"

Blue tilted his head on one side, arms folded. "That door handle's damn tricky," he drawled flatly. "Or is it that your lessons are so dreary?"

It was the equivalent of the gauntlet being hurled.

"A short attention span is often a hindrance to education," Ms Felps snapped. "And more usually, a feature of five year olds. Sit down _now_, Mr Malefici, and if there is no participation in this lesson, I'll be visiting the principle."

"You only have to participate if you want to," he purred, and sat down at the desk in front of Chatoya. He didn't look at her, or even appear to notice she was there.

The teacher turned away to pick up the book on her desk. "Shakespeare," she announced, the first hint of warmth coming into her voice. "One of the great, if not the greatest, playwrights on this earth. Even today, his words relate to real life, to make us laugh and to make us weep. And you are privileged enough to study Othello, one of his most superlative works. Or study it again," she added with a significant look in Chatoya and Cougar's directions.

She outlined the story, and went off into one of her passionate rants about the genius of the bard, and for a few moments, Chatoya could almost like the woman. She clearly loved her work - just not the students.

"Now," she said finally, the disdain snapping back over her gaunt face, "parts. Mr Skykes, you may read Roderigo, Mr Solomon, Brabantio and Iago..." her eyes swung across the room, and settled. "...Mr Malefici," she said with a good deal of satisfaction.

She couldn't see Blue's face, but she could hear the icy brevity in his voice. "I don't do reading."

The teacher's eyes flickered dangerously. She had a notoriously short fuse, and an even longer memory. Chatoya had had detention three times from her: once for arriving three minutes late, once for handing in an essay that was too messy, and once for staring insolently.

That last one, she considered, said everything.

"Mr Malefici," the woman said, "let me explain something to you. This is a school. You are here to learn. This requires your participation in the lessons. Now, I have had it up to here-" She raised her palm to her eyeballs as if demonstrating someone's height. "-with your truancy, insolence and downright laziness. I am not asking that you move mountains or, god forbid, answer any questions."

Chatoya could feel a growing pressure in the back of her mind, in that primal part of her where the soulmate link lurked. And to her surprise, she realised that Blue had to be getting emotional.

"No," he chopped out flatly. "I don't read aloud."

Ms Felps slammed her palms onto the desk so hard that half the class jumped, then leaned forward, her eyes small and hard. "We are not talking about detention here, Mr Malefici. We are talking about suspension. With a view to expulsion."

"I don't give a damn," Blue bit out. The knot in her head was growing, swelling, and she suddenly felt every muscle in her body tense, then realised it wasn't her body, but Blue's she was sensing.

"Your Elders will," the teacher said grimly. To any of the human students, it sounded perfectly innocent, if a little archaic. To the Nightpeople...they all knew about the Ryars Valley Elders. She was talking about having Blue thrown out. In no way could this be considered a bad thing (unless you were an arms dealer), but Chatoya didn't even want to think about the political ramifications of Blue slaughtering the Elders - as he undoubtedly would - and removing the one piece of lawfulness that still existed among the renegades, hunted, criminals and victims of Ryars Valley.

Blue was shaking his head, and Chatoya had to force herself not to do the same. The link was trembling between them, the shields he had put between them reduced to nothing in this strange, inexplicable and utterly ridiculous situation.

Why don't you just do it? she wanted to say. Why are you so upset over this?

For a moment, the teacher's eyes became small and hard as granite. "_Read_."

"For god's sake, leave him alone!"

The strident voice was one she knew too well, hacking the air apart. One thought seared her mind before she turned around in her seat.

_Cougar?_

The lamia's eyes were angry and defensive, a churning golden colour. Cougar? she wanted to say. But this is Blue. You hate him!

Hate or no, though, he stared sullenly at Ms Felps, who had gone that interesting shade of purple that Chatoya mentally classed as imminent heart attack.

"_What_ did you say?" she screeched.

Yeah, Chatoya thought, for once in agreement with the fiend from hell, staring at her friend. And why did you say it?

Cougar gazed at the teacher, his face managing to convey the idea that Ms Felps was something particularly unpleasant he had trodden in and now wanted to scrape from his foot.

"Didn't you hear?" he mockingly inquired in the delightfully deadly tone that meant Cougar Redfern was annoyed, and about to take it out on someone else. "I said leave him alone." He paused, and his glare deepened until it was an arrowhead of absolute hatred and loathing. "It's not Blue's fault he's dyslexic."

A whirring sensation in her head, the link so powerful that for a moment, she blinked and saw through Blue's eyes. Then it slammed down firmly, harshly and she was left alone, wondering, in the silence of her mind.

Dyslexic? Oh, how had she missed that? Something so utterly simple, that explained why he hadn't done the raising spell himself - he couldn't, of course he couldn't - and for a moment, she felt an odd pang.

Then she remembered he didn't deserve her sympathy.

Ms Felps was silenced briefly, her mouth working like a cow chewing the cud. Then she sputtered out, "Mr Malefici, you should see the school counsellor about this."

"Why?" Blue said in a tone that was - oddly for him - guarded. "So she can prescribe me a new brain?"

"For...for help," the teacher said faintly. She seemed to have shrunk in demeanour, from a raging tigress to a helpless kitten. Good, Chatoya decided, and then wondered at her feelings.

Then Ms Felps' face suffused with colour again, and her wrath turned on Cougar Redfern. "And _you_. You can have a detention for your impudence, and another for interrupting me." She sat back, apparently satisfied with her day's work.

It wouldn't make much difference to Cougar. As far as Chatoya knew, he'd already had five detentions this semester, and another couple wouldn't make much difference as he never did any of them anyway.

The rest of the class passed in a stunned silence, and when the bell went, Chatoya found herself flying over to Cougar's desk.

"I can't believe you did that!" she told him, perching on a corner of the table. "I thought... you and Blue..."

He shrugged, and looked down. "Yeah, well...it's not his fault. I just kept remembering how my parents would use him and hit him because he couldn't read and write even though he was so goddamn smart, and I couldn't stop them. Even when I got off the enclave, and figured he might have a problem, they didn't listen. " He gazed at her. "I mean, I couldn't warm to him if we were cremated together, but family's family, and I got into the habit of protecting him from people like her."

She was startled by his rushed words, but felt the warm glow of pride. Cougar might be tetchy and vicious, but still...he was someone she was glad to be friends with, someone she was knew would protect her like that if he had to. "I'm proud of you," she told him seriously.

She was pleased to see a wan smile on his mouth. "Really?"

"Really. Even if it was Blue...you did the right thing."

A glow came into his dear, grim face. "Thanks, babe. I don't hear that too often."

She laughed and ruffled his hair in a careless, sisterly affection. "Maybe you should."

For an instant, his eyes widened and filled something intense and quite indefinable - and it vanished as he glanced at his hands and then began to hastily throw everything into his bag.

"I'm not a good enough person," was his brief, and mystifying answer, and before she could entirely comprehend what he meant, he had gone, so fast she could have sworn he was fleeing.

X - X - X - X - X

Ria Lutinne was thinking the very same thing as she finished the letter, and pushed it into the envelope, and left it on the table. Someone would come in eventually and find it, and until then, she suspected they wouldn't notice she had gone.

You weren't good enough for me.

The thought was directed at Cougar, but he wasn't there to hear it. She knew it would have hurt him if he had. But somehow, that seemed only fair for all the tears she had cried over him, and all the nights that had been long and sleepless.

I did try to love you, she told him silently. I tried so hard. I tried to understand who you were, and who you are, and who you might be. But we were wrong.

It was a thought she had avoided for a long time, but now she finally thought it, there was none of the pain she expected, only relief.

Sometimes, the truth didn't hurt, but healed. Yes, she loved him in a way that she had loved no one else, but then, there had been no one else. Yes, in the last month, they had reached an uneasy truce, but there was one very simple reason why - they had been learning to be friends, not lovers.

She didn't think Cougar could ever understand what love was. He shrank from it, shrank from the giving of self that it demanded.

If he ever loved anyone...well, she'd be a lucky woman. Someone would savour his bitter humour, accept his secrets, take his insults with equanimity. But not her.

At least...not right now.

It would only be a year, while she finished high school somewhere safer. Ria had never liked the chaos of Ryars Valley; it terrified her, the sheer uncertainty of life and death. Everywhere seemed dangerous, and unless you courted death, there were so many roads you couldn't walk, so many areas you avoided.

She had courted death for a little while, hopelessly hurt by Cougar's rejection, before she realised that it was nothing to do with her, and perhaps even with him. They were simply too different.

The last month had been spent seeking permission from the Elders, arranging transport out, letting Zara Carmillen find her somewhere to go, persuading her not to tell any of the others.

She hadn't expected to go quite as far as Australia...but still, it would be an adventure. One she could cope with.

It wasn't goodbye, she counselled herself, taking a last look around, and not realising that a smile glowed on her face, lighting her with a radiance as startling as the meteor-shower red-gold of her hair.

And maybe when she came back, they would both be different.

X - X - X - X - X

"Hey!" Chatoya caught up with Cougar after several minutes of fast walking, her hands reaching out to catch him by one arm and try to stop him. She might as well have tried to stop a tank. "What was that about?"

He gave her an innocent look, and the fake, flashing smile appeared. "What?"

"Running off like that!" she said angrily. "Don't mess me around, Cougar."

His eyes flickered briefly, a melting honey shade. "I wouldn't. It was nothing, okay?"

Ah. So he was in one of those moods. She knew that asking him straight out would only lead to more evasions, and might set off that volatile temper if she pushed him too much.

Then something decidedly underhand and sneaky occurred to her.

"You know," she said slowly, "With all these charming lies, sometimes you really are like Blue."

God, that was cold of me, she thought, partially horrified as his jaw tightened and his eyes deepened to a smouldering bronze.

Worked though.

"I was thinking something you would not have appreciated," he said through gritted teeth. "I am trying to be charitable here."

She raised an eyebrow, but her curiosity was most definitely piqued. "Come on, Cougar, you're never this shy about speaking your mind."

He stared at her for a very long, uncomfortable moment, while she wondered what on earth was bothering him. Then he said unexpectedly, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

He should have looked like a gangster with his casual scruffiness and hooded eyes, but somehow, he looked oddly engaging. "Do you want to go to the Samhain Ball with me?"

"What," she said, startled, "as friends?"

He chuckled, and all that strange tension was vaporised. "Something like that."

"But what about Ria?"

His eyelids fell. "She's gone," he said shortly. "Or rather, she's going. I felt her...a minute ago. I didn't mean to spy on her, but you know what happens when you get emotional-oh wait, you don't, Blue _has_ no emotions-"

The venom in his voice could have brought down an elephant.

"It makes the link stronger," she cut in, and shrugged. "He may not get emotional but I do. And you reached her?"

That strange look in his eyes again, and she realised that he needed comfort but this was the only way he would ask. Maybe he didn't love Ria, but he certainly felt for her.

Why couldn't I have had you as a soulmate? she thought. Life would have been so much easier. I mean, you're not the kind of guy I'd fall in love with, but if I had to have a Redfern in my head, I'd rather it was the normal one of the family.

"Yeah," he said. He looked back up at her, a silent plea in his face that he probably wasn't even aware of. "Well?"

She laughed. "If you promise not to book a motel room."

"You think I could hold back my masculine urges that long?" he said wickedly, gratitude and that odd, other something jumping in his eyes. Something searing and nothing to do with friendship.

I wonder if he's got his eye on someone, she thought, someone he'll only see at the ball.

It was an interesting thought, one she stored away. And an even stranger one occurred to her:

I wonder what Blue would think?

_And I don't know if I've ever been really loved  
By a hand that's touched me and I feel like something's going to give  
And I'm a little bit angry. _


	9. Chapter Eight

Early again...I must stop this, you'll think I'm getting into good habits. But seriously, my heartfelt and deep thanks to those of ye who reviewed last time round: I worship at your feet. My devoted thanks to these divine and delightful deities:

**Danel, Insane, Dark Princess, Mandy, Aquilla, Queen Kat, Diomede, L.J., Himiko, Eleyne, Magelet, Innocent, Cynical Leaf, Kittykatt **and last but never least, **Me.**

The lyrics come from the Goo Goo Dolls' _Slide_ (Album: Dizzy Up The Girl) which I love deeply. It's a superb song.

**Chimera Part Eight**

_Could you whisper in my ear the things you want to feel?  
I'll give you anything to feel it coming.  
Do you wake up on your own and wonder where you are?  
You live with all your faults._

For the next few days, life was surprisingly ordinary.

Except for the awful question that plagued Chatoya night and day, that followed her like a distended, dreadful shadow.

Except for Cougar's strange behaviour. There was a shimmer in his eyes that she kept seeing, like a sacred flame soaring up, utterly alien and hot, and she couldn't work out quite who it was intended for.

Except for Blue.

She caught him looking at her in the lessons they shared, steady and cold as the fog that hung in winter air. Never saying a word, he only watched her as though he was waiting for something. Aspen did the same when she passed him in the corridors, a curious and half-mad stare that made her walk a little faster and wish Cougar was there to snarl angrily at them.

On the surface, life was smooth and clear. Below, the waters were filled with dangerous beasts, lurking in the depths.

She was shocked at how quickly a week passed, and at how soon she would have to give her answer. At how undecided she still was. There was so many doubts whirling around and around her mind, and she longed for someone who would listen and help her untangle what she truly felt.

At the moment, resentment twisted her into an intense knot. Resentment that Blue had tricked her - and she had no doubt he had tricked her - into this position.

Her mind automatically went to Jepar. He was like her brother, her confidant, and the one person she trusted above all. She'd kissed him and kicked him, been drunk with him, been hurt with him, been herself with him.

Jepar had a reassuring naivety (Cougar called it stupidity) about the world. The eternal optimist, he would always see a way to make everything right. Okay, so occasionally it was along the lines of 'let's all move to a parallel universe', or 'send up the bat signal', but he never failed to make her feel better.

Maybe that was what sent her to the lake, where he windsurfed so often after school. It was the one place she could catch him on his own; much as she liked Tali, she didn't know her like Jepar, and there was something a little guarded and objective, something a little too coolly intelligent about the dragon-girl.

The lake in Ryars Valley was beautiful in summer, but now, as autumn drew in, it became fathomless and icy as Blue's eyes. It was a place to drown in, if you weren't careful, but she always was.

She would never be in danger here.

The neon-yellow sail was chopping and cutting across the surface, Jepar just a stick figure on it, leaning out to catch the gusty wind. She found a perch on a splintery bench, soaking up the fading summer sun like a parched man guzzling water, and settled down to wait.

And wait...and wait...

At the crunch of feet on stone, she twisted around.

It was the new boy, halting like a frozen deer on the slope of the hill that eased down to the waters, his eyes wide, and bright with spring crocus colour.

"Oh...I wasn't expecting anyone else to be here," the boy said, though he didn't look disappointed. The Irish accent seemed to dissolve through her skin. "Sorry, I'll leave you in peace."

"No chance of that." She hadn't meant the weary comment to slip out.

He laughed gently, strolling down to join her. "You too?"

"I'm sorry?" she said, baffled.

"I always come here when I'm wound up." His eyes followed the sail across the waters. "It helps calm me down. There's nothing to do but sit. Think."

"Always?" she queried, looking at his profile. Not a beautiful face, no, nothing to match her Nightworld friends - and enemies - but she had longed ceased to value beauty. The rainbow scum on oil puddles was beautiful too, but it would do no one any good.

"Well..." he hedged, "a week in a new place always seems like forever." He held out a hand to her, and tentatively, she took it. "Sean."

"I'm Chatoya," she told him, and was rewarded with a crooked smile. "You've heard about me?"

"About your friends," he acknowledged, hiking up an eyebrow into that careless chestnut hair. "You're...quite the talk of the town. I've heard some colourful stories."

She smiled wryly. "Let me guess, Cougar and a satanic cult?"

"Yeah, that's one of them. And I hear you have a cupboard full of voodoo dolls."

"Hardly," she said, then shot him a sly glance. "It's only a drawer."

He laughed. "Then I'll try not to offend you."

"You don't seem too worried," Chatoya remarked, a touch puzzled.

"Well, there's lots of stories, but most of the people I've talked to didn't give me any actual reason why they don't like you." His eyes met hers: his gaze was direct and warm.

"Too many to choose from," she said lightly. "We're not what you call sociable."

"I guessed that when your friend snapped at me," Sean murmured. She liked his voice; under the delicious roll of his accent, the timbre was low and lethargic, as though he had all the time in the world sprawled at his feet.

"Cougar's just...like that," she said truthfully.

"Bitterer than a pint of Guinness?" he offered dryly. "Mind you, I've yet to meet a Redfern who isn't that way."

She smiled at his resigned expression. He had a wonderfully mobile faces, and each word was matched with a gesture, a movement, as though the life was bursting to escape from him. "He's not so-" Then the words sank in. "You know about Redferns?"

"I know about witches too," he said softly. His face was open, utterly candid. "My cousin's Thom Ausner-"

"So _you're_ his cousin! But you're so...different..."

He put his other palm over hers, enclosing her hand between his. "Not so different." He beamed, dimpling one cheek. "He said I'd like you. He was right," he added, a mischievous cadence creeping into his voice. "And I know this is forward, but would you like to go and get a drink?"

She stared open-mouthed, then recovered herself and said, "Why?"

"Because I like you," he said easily. "It's that simple. And if you want another reason, think of it as helping a poor, confused stranger."

She was surprised to find herself accepting. In the name of community spirit, of course.

X - X - X - X - X

"Cha-toya _Irkil_!" Lisa screamed as she burst into the Black Dahlia with an equally flustered Alisha, both of them grinning from ear to ear. "Did we see you in the Blood-Rose Café with that sexy Irish boy?"

Cougar Redfern's head shot up like a striking snake. "Did we?" he snapped.

"He's not that sexy," Alisha protested, pausing to catch her breath and fling herself down on their battered couch, sweeping off some of the debris left from Cougar's inadvertent collapsing of the roof. "I mean, he's not good-looking..."

"Alisha, are you really focusing on the right issue?" the African girl demanded. Chatoya couldn't hide the smile on her face, or the flush that spread over her cheeks. "Who, what, where, when, why and _how_?"

"Not how," Jepar said hastily. "At least, not in my hearing."

"Or mine," Cougar said darkly. There was a strange, tight look to his face, and Chatoya put it down to the bitter reminder of a relationship when his had fractured into shards so recently. "I hate girl talk."

Lisa cast him a withering glance, and perched on the arm of the couch. Alisha's oddly shrewd sapphire eyes were fixed on her, both of them clearly waiting. And well...what was the fun in meeting someone if you didn't share it?

"Well, him, obviously," she said. "Just coffee, the café, today, because he wanted someone to show him round-"

"That was so _not_ what he wanted to be shown," Cougar muttered sourly. All three girls ignored him.

"Did you kiss him?" the dragon asked. Alisha grinned as the two boys both clapped their hands over their ears.

"Did he kiss _you_?" Lisa said eagerly, her brown eyes dancing.

She put a finger under her chin, teasing them, then at their squeals, gave up, laughing. "No, I've only just met him!"

"But would you?" Lisa said archly, "That's the question!"

"I would," Alisha murmured. "But only if it was the right place."

Jepar took his hands cautiously from his ears, green eyes sparkling. "It had better be in the middle of a nuclear holocaust when you're the last two people alive."

She blew him a kiss. "Sorry, Jay. On a desert island, right on the beach with the sun above." Chatoya was startled. Maybe there was something of the romantic in Jepar's soulmate.

"No," Lisa disagreed. "That's so clichéd, Alisha. Your desert island would be packed with people having that fantasy!"

The dragon snorted. "Oh? What about you then? A crow's nest, I suppose, is that unconventional enough?"

The made vampire sighed. "No, no, you have it all wrong."

From the corner of her eye, Chatoya saw Cougar take his hands from his ears, staring at the girls in astonishment. His eyes were wide, and they flicked to her for a moment, then dropped to examine the floor in intimate detail. She was surprised to see him blushing.

"It would have to be...mmm...in a snowdrift," Lisa announced. "Middle of the night, stars all around...that would be so romantic."

"It's bloody cold in practice," Cougar grumbled, then looked aghast. "Did I say that out loud?"

"What about you, Toya?" Alisha chirped, as she carefully plaited her hair. Chatoya wished she could have hair like that; a wonderful rich earth colour, instead of dreary black. Or the dragon's delicate features. She didn't long for beauty exactly, but sometimes she wished she wasn't quite so ordinary.

"Well," she began, grinning at Jepar's horrified expression. "All right there, Jay?"

"I can't believe you actually discuss these things!" the shapeshifter said. "I mean, I thought you were so innocent!"

"Oh, we're shimmering angels," Lisa chimed, and the trio gave him their best pure and chaste look, until he started laughing. "Toya?"

"Well, I'm afraid this is a bit clichéd too," she murmured. "Under a waterfall."

There was a thoughtful pause, and she just _knew_ Tali was going ask about the practicalities of it. Before the dragon could launch into a lecture on water pressure, Lisa mercifully cut in. "Anyway, digressions aside - no, Tali, don't get all pedantic - I just came to tell you that we're all out tonight - our English teacher decided our class is taking an unofficial field trip to the woods tonight so we can learn to improve our descriptive technique. If we don't go, she'll fail us automatically."

Chatoya wondered if Ms Felps had any relatives.

"Shame you can't come along," Jepar put in and winked. "Being as how you're such a wilderness girl."

X - X - X - X - X

And that was how she came to be walking home with Cougar at her side, his feet scuffing on the ground and his head down. It was as though a raincloud hung permanently over him, changing him into this severe and silent boy she'd been putting up with for the past few days.

"So," she began, praying that she might be able to coax an answer out of him, "can I persuade you to wear a tux for the ball tomorrow?"

His shoulders tensed. "Sure you don't want to go with Sean?" He spat out the word with a deep and abiding poison.

Goddess, I wish he didn't get these moods, she thought fervently. "I'm going with you," she said firmly, and probed gently, "You're not...missing Ria, are you?"

His face snapped to hers, and she could see the startled dip of his brows. "No. Why should I?"

But...then... "Well, what on earth is wrong with you?" she cried. "You're been snapping at everyone, or at least, when you're not ignoring us, and I don't understand!"

His eyes slid into gold like someone striking a match, fizzling into furious life. "Maybe you're not supposed to."

"Stop sounding like Blue," she said through gritted teeth.

"I am not like Blue!" he shouted. "My bastard brother does not give a damn about _anyone_. I do! I'm going crazy with worry here because you don't seem to understand what you're getting into with him." A deep breath, and she thought he might stop, but the lamia only continued his tirade, raw accusation in every line of his body. "I know he was in your house the other night, Chatoya, I can sense him a mile away! And you were playing around with him in a _graveyard_ one morning, and I don't know what the hell you think you're doing!"

"I had no choice!" she protested, but his seething glare didn't dim at all. "It was...oh, gods, Cougar, I don't know. He keeps threatening all of you if I don't help him..."

His breath hissed in. "I'll kill him."

"Take a ticket and get in line," she said grimly. And here was the moment, she should mention Pursang and-

She was startled when his arms went around her, and he hugged her tightly. Such affection from him was rare, and she wasn't sure who needed the comfort more: he shook with pure rage.

"How _dare_ he use us as a lever?" he demanded of the empty sky. "How dare he threaten you?" He leaned back, and his eyes were anxious. "Toya, you know I - I mean, we - would never let him hurt you? We can take care of ourselves. Don't let him threaten you like that!"

The force of his words amazed her, as did the intense expression on his face.

"And we can take care of you," he said more quietly. "Please...don't keep secrets."

"I didn't mean to," she answered, and was even more surprised when he kissed her forehead. "I didn't know you were that worried."

He shrugged, and let go of her. "I was, so look after yourself." Then his sinner's smile lit the saint's face. "And you should know - I don't do tuxedos."

He left her at her door, and she let herself in with relief. This day had been so busy, she felt thoroughly drained by it all. But at least she knew what was wrong with Cougar now; only simple concern. He was a better friend than anybody ever thought.

She read for a half hour - she loved the fabulous fantasy worlds of Camelot, of the Seven Kingdoms - and finally, sleep drew its arms around her, and pulled her into dreams.

X - X - X - X - X

She found herself sitting by a waterfall. The detail of the scene was blurred, as though she couldn't quite remember this place. She had come here once on a picnic with her family, and a wasp had stung her. She remembered running, screaming like an idiot until her father told her to sit down and stop being so silly; wasps were the wings of the Goddess, and only harmed those who harmed them.

The thought brought sadness with it, and nostalgia.

Her father was long dead; so was her mother, and her twin brother. But the wasps still buzzed here, even in her dream. In her memory, it would be summer forever.

She stood, and brushed the grass from her clothes.

Her clothes.

Why on earth was she in a velvet green gown that could have come straight from a period drama, with a square neckline that showed more of her cleavage than she was comfortable with? And why was there a gauzy shawl around her shoulders, and a heavy necklace about her neck...?

"You look quite delectable, witch of mine."

She spun - not an easy manoeuvre in the dress - and Blue was there. He almost took her breath away; he looked like a young knight, come wandering in search of a quest, complete with a sword gleaming at his side, and a shield slung over his arm.

"What are you playing at?" she demanded. "Get out of my dreams! I am not taking part in your fantasies!"

"I should hope not," he answered. "This is the product of your mind, not mine."

She opened her mouth to deny it, then remembered she had been reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Bugger.

"You seem to become more lovely every time I look at you," he remarked quite casually, without the softness or intimacy he should have had.

Her mouth fell open.

"Mind you," he said blithely, "you're nothing much to look at, so it can't be too difficult. Still, perhaps you'll be a fitting consort yet."

"In your dreams!" she managed.

"Oh no, witch of mine, in yours." He had no trouble making himself heard across the constant hiss of the waterfall. "And I have an accusation of my own - why have you brought me here?"

"I didn't!" she snapped. "I don't want you near me!"

His eyes widened and a challenge leapt in them. "Don't you? Why am I here then, like this?"

There was no way her mind would have called him here. Not at all. Certainly not looking disturbingly dangerous, threatening and flattering with equal charm. And not a waterfall...

She remembered the earlier conversation.

This wasn't even funny.

"Did you know you've gone a very interesting shade of scarlet?" Blue said. "And that everything you're thinking is playing out behind you?"

Oh god...

"Really, witch of mine, a waterfall?" That sensuous mouth curved slowly. "Very liberated of you. Not to mention damn cold...but I suppose we'll have to make do."

"We'll _what_?" she screamed, trying to hurry back and succeeding only in getting tangled in her skirts. "Touch me and your ability to father children will be severely impaired!"

He stopped. And then he did something that surprised her.

He began to laugh. Not the dry, cold laughter she had heard from him before but a wonderful rich sound that sent shivers through her body, like a cageful of birds flying free. His smile scorched her like a flashfire, brilliant and blazing.

She stared. Finally, his smile dimmed, but for a moment as he looked at her, his eyes were dazzling and unreadable. "Witch of mine, you are unique," he told her. "You bring me here...in this despicably impractical clothing, into your ludicrous fantasy, and then you threaten me!"

She didn't know how to deal with him like this. "It's you," she said, but couldn't keep the puzzled note form her voice. "Isn't it?" Or was he just an illusion?

He straightened, and moved towards her. She didn't move - and in fact, couldn't - as he offered her a hand. "Afraid?"

"Not of you!" she said furiously and seized his hand.

Mistake.

He pulled her to him, and for a moment they were so close she couldn't even focus on his face. But she could feel his heartbeat, pressed to hers.

"You should be," he said against her mouth. The grazing touch was sending fear through her and something new, intense, that she couldn't decipher. "Sometimes I don't even know what I'll do."

"Only sometimes?" She drew back. A bit safer now.

"Mmm. Do you know, that dress is cut disturbingly low?"

"I am not going to...to..." She searched for a word that wouldn't sound provocative. "...get fresh with you in a dream. You're beneath me."

"Not yet, but we'll work on that one."

"I'd rather die!"

"Oh, you may think you've gone to heaven, certainly." Those mocking eyes were concentrated on her, and for the first time she saw new colour in them. Apart from the tiny ring of gold around the iris, flecks of turquoise and navy added a deeper hue to his stare.

I am not going to notice things like that. Focus.

"Stop being so suggestive," she said through gritted teeth.

The look he gave her was purely male, and made her go scarlet. Anger, she told herself, just anger.

"You're infuriating."

"You're tempting." He caught her hand and kissed it. "And stubborn."

"Let go of me."

"Fight and I'll break your hand," he purred. The ring of gold around his eyes was flowing outwards, making his stare heavy and hungry. "What are you so afraid of, my sweet spellcaster? This is only a dream. What harm can one kiss do?"

"Everything," she said, afraid of the coldness in his eyes as he spoke about passion and felt none of it. "If this wasn't a dream, you wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't I?" he whispered and he leaned in, the movement a challenge, daring her to retreat. So she didn't, because it would be weakness, because he would win again, because, because...

And she felt the warmth of his breath, the press of his mouth, soft at first, then harder, angles and pressure and tricks she wasn't ready for, tricks she didn't expect him to know. The graze of his teeth on her bottom lip, a finger tracing the nape of her neck, his hands light, hardly holding her at all, and the kiss hard and hot and demanding.

The link burst between them like fireworks.

He was, she recognised, letting her in. And for a mad, mazed second, she accepted.

His mind was an open gate, inviting her to step inside and look around. To warm herself on the emotions that were searing as solar flares. He was fire caged in ice, and either way, he burned.

It was she who broke the kiss, drawing her head back. They stared at one another and he raised an eyebrow.

Then she slapped him.

And it hurt him. A thrill of realisation zapped through her. He was powerless here, just as he had been in that crypt.

"You never, ever do that again," she said sharply. "Not without my express permission. So _never_."

"Quoth the craven, 'Nevermore'?" he drawled. She seemed to still feel the imprint of that kiss on her mouth, in a way that was too real to be merely a dream. "Nearly had you there, witch of mine."

Her eyes had cooled, until they matched his for sheer emptiness. Oh, if there was one thing he had taught her, it was this. "You can't play with me any more. I know what you are."

"No," he answered. And the venom rose in his voice, sharp and lethal. "You think you know what I am. And you'll get it wrong every time. Maybe I wasn't playing." He eyes deepened and darkened, until the terrible void beyond any world she knew opened up there.

She could feel awakening roll over her, and he seemed to flicker and fade in her vision as the scene did, dimming into grey. But his words were the last thing to fade, and they hung on the air, curious and incomprehensible.

"This isn't a game now."

_I want to wake up where you are.  
I won't say anything at all._


	10. Chapter Nine

I'm sorry this is so late - FFN crashed. But thank you so so much to people who brought a spark of sanity back into my life :-) Thank you:

**Mal, Danel, Ky, Magelet, Werepanther, Innocent, Kittykatt, Night Goddess, Queen Kat, Tough Fluff, Dark Princess, Mandy, Himiko, Eleyne, Kay, Aquilla, Kendal, Insane, Adelaide **and the delightful **Dominique, **

The lyrics are the Fugees 'Ready or Not'. (Album: The Score)  
Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Nine**

_Ready or not, here I come  
You can't hide  
Gonna find you  
And take it slowly._

The place reeked of magic.

He had had to slip in carefully, because while he could explain Sean Doyle, intrepid explorer, in the middle of a cemetery, explaining away Sean Doyle in the secretly hidden remains of a aeons-old temple was something else altogether.

Iager tried to keep his breath shallow, so the waxen, oregano taste of magic didn't coat the back of his throat like the rest of his mouth. No one ever talked about the downsides of being a dragon. It was all universal dominance this, and supreme evil that.

No one ever wrote about being able to feel magic in a way that went beyond the psychic and into the physical.

No one ever told you that constantly shapeshifting left you with serious complexes about how many legs you should have.

"Damn me," he breathed, crouching down to draw his finger over what would have appeared to be empty air to anyone else. To him, it was a seam that glowed with a faint phosphorescence, a place where the fabric of the world had been carelessly ripped in two, and sealed shut.

And he recognised the magic.

He had felt its herbal tang around another person only yesterday, tasted it on her skin. That intriguing witch girl who he had been informed was Malefici's soulmate, and who could be very useful indeed.

What had Chatoya Irkil been doing in an underground tomb to leave such scars?

What had she been doing in _his_ tomb?

He remembered this place when it had been the Nightfire Temple, and not a decaying hole. When he had sat high upon a dais, wreathed in gold and fire, and passed judgement on them all. Things had been different then; he was the last dragon, the one who had escaped the enchanted sleep and fled to a corner of the earth where dragons were unknown to become, instead, a god.

The place had been laced with torches and statues, bright with life and bright with blood. They had prayed to him, and he had led them to war and led them to victory, countless voices shouting out for their dark god, the one god, the only god.

He could still smell blood on the air, clinging to the altar, and was irrevocably drawn to it, moving in the fluid and slow strides of that dragon who had been a deity. New blood, and old blood mingling together, as heady and delicious as he remembered, and as he ran his fingers down the tiny stone gutters hewn into the stone, he seemed to see the crimson liquid flowing down them, wine of the body.

In the name of religion, people would do anything.

He had been a god who felt no remorse, cared not how many of his followers lived and died because there were more, always more, flocking about him. He cared for nothing and no one until a sorceress came, and threw him into sleep, and when he awoke, forced him to care.

Even now, the deep hum of their voices seemed to ring in his ears, chanting praise as they genuflected, pouring blood into his waiting maw, obeying without question or hesitation.

Even now, part of him wished things had never changed, and that Fireblade had not become Iager.

But the rest only sighed, and remembered that he was chasing not ghosts but the living. He was here for a reason, and that reason was to take back what had been stolen, and to destroy what should never have been.

But still...he cast a last glance back over his shoulder as he walked out, and thought he glimpsed the maddened throng kneeling before him.

Some memories never fade.

X - X - X - X - X

"What do you _mean_ you don't have a dress?" Lisa yelped, aghast, and threw the book she was reading to the floor. "Toya, this is your last Samhain prom as a senior, you have to have a dress!"

Alisha arched an eyebrow. "Definitely. Come on, make Cougar shell out for it."

"Cougar is broke," the vampire said hastily, his golden eyes glittering with alarm. "Though he won't complain if you turn up in something short and tight. We all like to see your fabulous legs."

"Hey!" Alisha objected, giving her ex-brother her coolly disgusted look. "Please, less of the coarseness."

"Excuse me, Miss Beach Fantasy," the lamia purred. "I wouldn't want to offend your female sensibilities."

The moment the dragon turned her back, Cougar gave her a one-fingered salute.

She whipped round so fast her hair slapped her face. "I saw that!"

"Really?" he said innocently, and raised the other finger. "Can you see that too?"

Most people didn't mess with Cougar, even when he was in a quirky mood. However, as one of the few people who had absolutely no fear of him, Tali didn't hesitate, but threw herself across the room with the kind of audacious violence more often seen in pre-menstrual elephants.

Lisa and Chatoya hid shamelessly behind the sofa until the sound of kicks, punches and breakages stopped, then she peered over the back in pure curiosity, wondering which one was still standing.

Both as it turned out, eyeball to eyeball and snarling. Cougar had a graze running across his face and arm, and she could see how taut he was, stretched and strained like a rope bridge about to give way.

"You deserve everything you get," Tali said furiously, rubbing at a bruise on her arm. "God, the charm school just took your money and ran, didn't they? I'm not surprised Ria left!"

There were two thumps as Lisa and Chatoya dived for cover.

How could she say that? Chatoya thought feverishly. Tali wasn't exactly famed for her tact - her first meeting with Cougar had resulted in her punching him - but even she should have known better.

There was a hanging silence, tightening like a noose.

"Maybe I do deserve it," Cougar said at last, and Chatoya lifted her head to see him sink into a chair, his black hair touched with blue bands of light. "But you didn't have to twist the knife."

They made an odd scene, Tali and Cougar. Since she had become a dragon, Tali seemed to Chatoya to have lost some of her humanity, and become harder, perhaps colder. Maybe she had to, simply to survive what she now was. It didn't make Chatoya like it any more.

She was lovely now, one of the prettiest girls Chatoya had ever seen and envied a little, cut in colours of the earth; her hair was a bold red-brown akin to the rain-smeared mud, and her skin the pallid shade of marble, veined in delicate blue at her wrists, and of course, there was no escaping the aged and direct sapphire of her eyes.

Not inhuman, not endless like Blue's, but simply so painfully candid that it was hard to meet them and not be intimidated by the sheer force of personality there.

And Cougar...always at his most enticing when at his most vulnerable, with shadows in his eyes and his smile nothing but memory. Here, it said, was the angel that had plummeted down so far that he had dipped a toe in hell, and remained haunted by the horror. Here was someone with their wings clipped.

And then Tali sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't," she admitted. "I remember I didn't like it much. Sorry. I didn't mean it so harshly. I know you and Ria didn't get on...it cuts both ways."

He shrugged, his hands linked loosely and hanging between his knees. "Yeah. It does. We just...we weren't right, that was all."

The dragon girl looked down on him solemnly. "We'll have to find you someone," she said determinedly. "You need someone to look after you."

"I can find someone myself, thank you," Cougar said with all the dignity he could muster.

Lisa giggled and got up from the floor. At last, the atmosphere grew less tense and Chatoya was glad of it. She hated it when her friends fought. "Does that mean you've found someone, you hunk of burning love?"

""That's not your -" The vampire's face was a picture as he leant back, looking faintly aghast. "...what did you just call me?"

"Oh, that's what one of the juniors was describing you as," she said, and winked. "Toya heard them too."

His eyes flicked to her, widening and deepening in colour. "Did you?"

"I did indeed, you reckless sex machine," she said, and laughed out loud at his blush. "Or so I hear. Where do you get this reputation?"

He shrugged. "I don't know! I've only been out with Ria...though I might have made a few...remarks in their general direction..." He looked at his feet hurriedly.

"So..." Tali murmured, perching herself on the sofa, "Who's your special someone then?"

"I didn't say-"

"No," she interrupted, "but you were about to tell Lisa that it wasn't her business which means that there is someone. So spill!"

"No!" Cougar said indignantly, ducking his head though Chatoya could still see the flush creeping over those sharp cheekbones. "If there is someone, it's my business."

"Is she the reason why you're going to the Samhain Ball?" Chatoya said slyly, wondering if it was one of the junior girls he was interested in. After all, that would explain his coyness - they were human, for a start.

"Mind your own!" He held up his hands in a warding off gesture, then blinked. "Do you think that's why I asked?" he muttered, wounded. "I wouldn't use you like that, Toya. I just know I'll enjoy myself if I go with you."

His eyes pleaded with her to believe him, and she relented. He never liked being teased. "Thanks."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Lisa said dryly, "but last time you two went anywhere together, wasn't it the survival course out in the woods, and didn't you end up terrifying some poor humans by spinning them ghost stories and then walking through the campsite in the middle of the night wrapped in a mosquito net that Toya had witched to glow?"

That had been years ago, not long after she'd first arrived. Everyone was still under the mistaken impression that it had been his idea. She had to work hard to stop her mouth twitching with mirth, and it didn't help when she glanced Cougar's way and saw him fighting to keep a straight face.

"You're utterly wrong," she said.

"Innocent until proven guilty," added the lamia, and got to his feet. "And before you start piling up the evidence, I'm out of here." He paused at the door, and threw a mischievous look over his shoulder. "Buy something nice," he said. "Shock me."

The door slammed firmly after him, shaking loose a few splinters. Cougar always knew how to make an exit.

"Wear shrink wrap and a smile then," Lisa said dryly. "That's about the only thing that will shock him. But he's right. Come on, Toya, let's shop till we drop!"

X - X - X - X - X

Unbeknown to Chatoya, there had been a second and silent conversation taking place, and it flicked through Cougar Redfern's head as he unlocked his Porsche, a very expensive apology from a friend for wrecking his last car.

He didn't like to see Lisa Ochai unhappy, but it had been clear that she was, however well she tried to hide it. He'd known her a long time, and had been able to recognise that too familiar grief in her face.

After all, it took one to know one, and he'd been too unhappy too long.

Oh, stop being so self-pitying, he told himself, and started the car with an angry flick of his wrist. It was one of his worst traits, and he knew it.

It hadn't taken long to wheedle the truth out of Lisa, looking so forlorn with her slumped shoulders and tired eyes whenever she thought no one was watching.

Cern Akafren was the problem.

Cern Akafren, who had lost his soulmate. He'd always been close to Lisa and had always been the mellow one, the one who sat through arguments without a flinch, and had a gently cynical view on life. He was one of Cougar's best friends, and frankly, he'd been bugging him no end lately.

Cougar could understand him being upset that his soulmate had died. Yes. Fine. Even fights with Ria had hurt him; he couldn't imagine what it would be like if she had been torn from him.

But he really didn't approve of these listless suicide attempts.

It wasn't as if he was even trying properly. If Cougar had been going to kill himself, he'd make sure there was no chance of anyone finding him. It would be neat, and above all effective.

But then...Lisa had made Cern promise he wouldn't.

And that was why he was going into Pack territory, where Cern could be found. Ever since Jal's death, he had spent more and more time with the wild werewolves of Ryars' Valley, discovering his feral side. Maybe hunting helped.

Cougar could still remember a time when he had thought the taste of blood would take everything away. Humans had alcohol, vampires had blood, and half-breeds like Cern Akafren...they had whatever power they could find to overwhelm their mind and take away the anguish, at least for a while.

He was driving on dirt tracks now, further into the woods that were thick and deep as fairytale forests and just as full of wolves. It was very easy to miss the turning to the Pack's lair if you weren't careful, and-

He swung the car sharply right, into a patch of shade that turned out to be a well-disguised road entrance. Something howled - their sentry, he guessed; the Pack weren't too popular with anyone - and Cougar was tempted to try and run it over and make his total accident count up to lucky seven, but left it.

He was surprised at how empty the place was when he finally pulled up by the one or two battered cars parked in a patch of cleared land. They had to be out hunting.

There was a girl waiting for him, her arms folded and her eyes hard amidst a wealth of black eyeliner, half-veiled by an overlong coppery fringe. The ramshackle den of the Pack was behind her, scattered with stolen picnic tables, sleeping bags and half-eaten food.

"Nice of you to drop by," she said, and nodded curtly. Cougar had to wonder how she avoided hurting herself on the massive spikes attached to her dog collar. "Now get out."

He bared his teeth at her. "Can it, Felicity, though I know you like your meat fresh. I'm here to see Cern."

"Oh..." Felicity Serafine relaxed a little. "He's not here."

She had a lovely voice, at odds with her harsh appearance. It rang like miniature bells, while the rest of her was only a discord. You had to be a certain type of person to pull off gothic and consumptive, and she wasn't it.

"Well, where is he?"

She shrugged. "Don't know, That's where the rest of them are. For a guy who only just started mingling with the beast within, he's fast."

"Damn," the vampire muttered, and glared resentfully at the cigarette in her grubby hand. He'd been conclusively banned by his friends on the grounds it was unsociable and revolting. Cougar didn't agree with either of these, but couldn't afford to buy a new pack every half hour after the old ones were either thrown in the bin, on the fire, or into the lake by whoever caught him. "How's he been?"

She gazed at him curiously. "What's it matter to you?"

"He's my friend," he said curtly. Why did people always give him that suspicious look when he said that? Was it really so unlikely? "I have this strange compulsion against seeing them hurt, call me Mr Radical."

"Well...look..." The young werewolf bit her lip, and then beckoned him into the den. "Sit down. It'll take a while before they find him. If they do," she added dourly.

His surprise must have shown on his face, because she half-smiled, though it was acid. "Took us three days last time. He's not like us...he uses spells to hide himself."

"He's always been best with magic," he agreed, and shook his head as the wolf tentatively offered him a cigarette. "I quit."

She peeked at him from under her bangs. "You don't seem like the quitting type."

"I was ruthlessly tortured until I gave in," he muttered.

Her eyes widened, grey as fog. "Really?"

"Oh yeah," he told her, enjoying her complete attention. "They sang Kumbayah at me until I caved in."

She laughed, and he was surprised by the way she covered her mouth with her hand, as though she was afraid to show the world. "Wish I had friends like that." She looked around the clearing, gloomy and messy. "They're...strange here."

"How long have you been here?" he asked, making conversation. She reminded him of Toya in a strange way. It was something in the eyes, a deep and fiery willpower that said whatever you threw at this girl, she would not allow herself to break.

"Two months," she said, reaching for a half-opened sixpack of soda. "I ran off from my family 'bout half a year ago." She told the story emotionlessly, and it rang true with Cougar. He remembered using that tone himself, trying to chop off his emotions from his past. It never worked. "I guess I'm lucky. I don't have the Nightworld after me like most of you."

Cougar raised his eyebrows, wondering what caused that bleak look on her face. "Can I ask why you ran?"

She shrugged. "They all tell me I was crazy. I had it all, you know." She looked at her hands, and Cougar realised with a start that her fingernails were beautifully manicured. "Expensive education, nice house, good hunting grounds, even a kitten. Perfect parents, always at dinner parties and the Rotary club - I'm sure you know the kind. Then this old friend of theirs came to stay."

She paused, and toyed with her hair. "Guy called Laburnum Martin," she said flatly. "A lamia. They all called him Bernie. Came from some enclave near Milwaukee - he said he was looking for his son who'd run away, that they were all real worried about him because he was a bit unstable and told all sorts of crazy stories. I can't remember what the son was called...it was something like an Aston Martin."

Cougar froze quite still. God...he remembered Bernie Martin, yeah, no one could forget the bastard, though he'd never dared mess with a Redfern. Even now, his name evoked a sharp picture in his mind not of him, but of his son, of Aspen Martin as a kid, scared of his own shadow and terrified of the dark.

He remembered screaming at his parents to listen to him about how bad Bernie was, and why the hell they let him stay on the enclave, and even hitting his father. All he had gotten for his pains was more pain.

If Blue had done one good thing in his life, it was getting Aspen away from the enclave and away from Bernie.

But Felicity didn't notice; her face was still, almost rapt. "I didn't think anything of him at first," she said slowly. "Then I started seeing him looking at me in a funny way. Like...like I was prey. But I thought he'd be gone soon, and that would be the end of it." She laughed. "God, I was stupid! Little Catholic school girl, so sweet and so - god - damn - stupid! I went down to get a glass of water one night, and he must have followed me because when I turned round he was _there_ and..."

"I can guess the rest," he said flatly.

Her eyes snapped from the past to the present, and lost that awful dead light. "You know him!"

"Knew," Cougar said. "He used to live on my enclave." He shivered. "Us kids used to steer well clear of him. But the parents didn't know, or if they did, they didn't care, so he stayed there. The son's called Aspen - and he lives here."

Felicity sucked in her breath. "Aspen? His last name's Martin?"

He nodded. "Yup. For god's sake...don't tell him you met his father. He'll go ballistic, and he's only just on this side of sane as it is."

She was pale. "Christ," she said, and looked at the Coke. "Maybe I need something stronger."

"Why?" he asked. "Bernie doesn't even know about this place."

"Doesn't he?" she said. "He stopped at ours because he needed somewhere to wait for a while. Said there was someone in our area who had information in some organisation. And Mom was asking him if it was one of the big three - whatever that means, and then he said a word..._Pursang_, that was it, and Mom told him never to mention that word at her table again. I thought that was so weird...do you know what it is?"

Cougar recovered himself. "Not a clue," he lied bluntly. "Don't worry about it, Felicity. Look...maybe Aspen should know. But I'll tell him, okay? I know him a little so he's more likely to believe me, and less likely to kill me."

"It's Flick," she said quietly. And now he understood where that smouldering willpower had come from. The determination not to lose herself, the reason that there was no sweet Catholic schoolgirl, only this hard, brittle girl. "Look...the Pack could be gone days. Why don't you give me your telephone number, or your friends'? When I hear something, I'll ring you and you can come and knock some sense into Cern."

"Thanks," he said, and as he drove away, saw her still sitting there in his rearview mirror, staring into space.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya had had her doubts about the dress the moment Lisa and Alisha had cajoled and bullied her respectively into trying it on. It was long and clinging, made of a soft black velvet that whispered with each step. A slit ran from ankle to mid-thigh and the neckline dipped scandalously low. It was, Lisa had said with a sparkle of delight in her eyes, a witch's gown.

They dragged her around Ryars Valley's small, expert and excruciatingly expensive shops until they found a perfect pair of high suede strappy shoes that curled around the length of her feet like snakes, elegant and emphasising her height. Making her stand out uncomfortably.

Their frantic shopping had ended as the sun began to sink and the shops closed, leaving Chatoya considerably poorer and the shops considerably richer.

"I'm not sure about this," she said to Tali as the dragon girl twined her brown hair into a complex knot secured by about half a can of hairspray and enough grips to build a small fence.

"I am," Alisha said firmly, and forced a clip in with a hiss. "You cannot miss this!"

As the doorbell rang, the dragon got up, brushing at her short scarlet dress briskly and ran downstairs.

"Hey!"

She looked over at the window and stared as Cougar Redfern slithered in. "Does this look like an episode of Dawson's Creek?" she hissed, moss eyes wide. "And how did you...?"

"Oh, I learned how to break into houses ages ago." Cougar said airily. "And you left the ladder outside." He took a moment to look at her. The hazel eyes widened and filled with gold. "Please tell me that what's under that dress is as good as it looks."

"You certainly aren't going to find out," she answered tartly but was secretly pleased. "Where have you been?"

"Oh, around," he said casually, leaning on the wall and watching her brush at her fingers with her hair. "Went to see the Pack. Found a little problem. Look...would you kill me horribly if I turned up a little late? There's someone I should go and see."

There was a nuance to his voice that puzzled her, a wariness. A glance at his face in the mirror confirmed that this was serious. "No problem."

"Are you sure?" he began. "I mean...I feel like such a bastard just leaving you here-"

"You wouldn't do this unless it was important," she said mildly. "Whatever else you are, you're not unreliable."

"But what about you?" he said, those extraordinary eyes flaring. "I can't let you-"

"Cougar Redfern," she said, adopting Lisa's thou-shalt-obey-me-or-get-thy-ass-kicked tone. "You shall _not_ go to the ball, at least until later. I am a strong, confident and, let's face it, amazing woman. I can cope. And if you don't go, I'll...I'll...turn you into an aubergine."

He threw his hands up, looking startled. "I hear and obey, O master! And," he added as he turned to go, "...why an aubergine?"

"I just think it's you," she murmured and smiled as he slipped out the window to land ten feet below with a yelp and a crunch. Chatoya leaned out to see an angry vampire hobbling up to glare at Alisha, who was holding the ladder and glaring right back.

"If you ever, ever, ever break into my house again," the dragon-girl was shouting, "I will..."

"I know," she heard Cougar say gloomily. "You'll turn me into an aubergine."

A long pause and then Alisha's baffled voice floated up. "I was going to kill you actually...but...that sounds way more interesting."

"Hey."

She turned away from the raised voices below to see Jepar in the doorway, grinning and looking unusually formal in a tux, as though he had stepped straight from the set of a James Bond soiree. The elegant-boned face was framed by the sleek gold hair, and his emerald eyes were aglitter.

He wolf-whistled softly. "Wow! Remind me again why we stopped dating."

She laughed despite herself. She and Jepar had dated a couple of years back, but it had fizzled out eventually. "You kept stealing my CDs."

"I knew it was something important," he parried, and shook his head. "You look great."

"What about me?" Lisa protested as she sashayed out of the bathroom and gave him a model's twirl in her daffodil-yellow dress. The hem fluttered like petals; the left side reached to her knee and the right swept up to end alarmingly high on her thigh. Long sleeves covered her arms, and her hair was bright with tiny yellow flowers.

Jepar put a hand to his forehead and pretended to faint. "Radiant," he declared. "Sumptuous, divine...I hope I'm getting kudos for this." He glanced out of the window. "Now come on, our chariot awaits."

"Chariot?" Chatoya said, confused.

"Well..." the blond shapeshifter said, his emerald eyes alight. "When I say chariot. I mean Thom's pickup truck."

"Never mind," Chatoya murmured, looking at out at the first flush of violet sweeping over the sky. "It's still some enchanted evening."

She was to be proved exactly right.

X - X - X - X - X

"I hope he's abandoned his old burglar alarm," Jacqueline Trehet remarked dryly, looking at the deceptively cosy house. "Honestly, there had better be a good reason why you dragged me all the way from the Med."

Aspen Martin beamed brightly at the second most powerful person in Pursang - himself included - and she saw that madness roll over his face like a hot spring, obscuring all with the steam of his broken thoughts. "He had a burglar alarm? Blue?"

"Well," she said, wondering how on earth this boy could manage to look so wretchedly innocent. "Burglar alarm, bear-trap. Same difference. Nearly took my damn leg off." She pulled the slit in her skirt apart to show him the welt of pale pink scar tissue. "I only just missed the landmine."

The dual-coloured eyes, an unsettling heart's-blood red paired with ice-core silver, were far too intense for her liking. "When did you need to see Blue?"

When had he got so smart? Last time she had seen her superior - and Jacqui's teeth still gritted at the thought - he had been about as bright as an eclipse, and unable to notice a hint unless it came in the form of an ICBM.

She decided not to mention she had been planning to overthrow Aspen, and head Pursang, and went for the acceptable substitute of, "I was trying to kill him."

"Oh, of course," Aspen said guilelessly. "Last time I tried that, he'd spilt water all over the floor and left wires in it." He shrugged. "Cunning. Did you know electricity and water are seriously fatal? You think they'd let the general public know, wouldn't you?"

Jacqui let it pass that the general public able to count above twenty usually did know.

"So what is this about?" she murmured, as the pair of them instinctively checked before the door in case of sudden surprises. "Is there a reason why we're going to see Chronic Sonic?"

"You better hope he doesn't hear that," Aspen remarked, ruffling her messy, blond-tipped hair with a careless hand. Jacqui fought the urge to drive an elbow into his stomach. She hated tactile contact, but Aspen seemed to thrive on it. "Anyway, he's got worse lately. He's found his soulmate."

"His _what_?" Jacqui said, completely forgetting her jet-lag, and the fact she should have been in Kos, enjoying a long break, and her thousands of schemes, and her superior's numerous failings.

"Soulmate," the lamia said casually. "They don't like each other much. He's playing games with her, but Jacqui, you won't believe this - she fought him last week and she won."

Close your mouth, Jacqui told herself, unless you want birds to start nesting in it. Well, you knew there had to be someone better than him! She must be one of those warrior types, probably every bit as gorgeous and deadly as he is. Knows all the martial arts...a very old vampire, maybe a tough shifter...a dragon, even.

"I'd like to meet her," she said and gave a bark of laughter. "By all that's sacred, I'd like to meet her!"

Aspen half-smiled as he pushed open the door with one finger, ready to leap back at the first sign of explosives. If he hadn't nearly killed her three years ago in that vicious fight for control, she wouldn't believe the power and danger that was coiled in him. "You will."

"Oh?" she said absently. The green flecks in her eyes gleamed brightly as she stepped after him. Green on brown, a woodland beast. "Why's that?"

There was a breeze on her cheek, and a thud. When she whirled, a knife quivered in the wall, and pinned the bottom of her earring neatly. Her fingers fumbled to her ear, and felt the top half of the sterling silver jewellery still whole and attached. It had been hit precisely where it joined.

She turned her eyes to the doorway and saw through it Blue Malefici straddling a chair, his arms folded along the back of it and his chin on his hands, looking at her with a deep and frozen amusement. His voice made her breathe in, shocked at the fathoms that slunk beneath it, layers of inhumanity and shadow that had not been there before.

"Because she's about to take over Pursang."

_Ready or not, here I come  
You can't hide  
Gonna find you...  
And make you want me._


	11. Chapter Ten

Hello again! Thank you to all the amazing, awesome and always angels of you who reviewed last time :-) I loved hearing what you thought - thank you:

**Leopardess, Night Goddess, Queen Kat, Dark Princess, Eleyne, Mandy, Water Soul, Rain, Werepanther, Meg, Magelet, Midnight Haze **and the ever-wonderful **Diomede**.

Comments are treasured, cherished, adored, pored over, cheered, revered and savoured. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The lyrics are the Goo Goo Dolls _Dizzy_ (Album: Dizzy Up The Girl), which everyone should hear once in their life.  
Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Ten**

_You're cynical and beautiful,  
You always make a scene  
You're monochrome delirious,  
You're nothing that you seem_

"A party," Jacqui repeated dumbly.

She felt somewhat lost. Her boss - her bizarre, lunatic boss - was being replaced by the titan of a girl who had managed to rout Bane Malefici in a fair fight. And now the pair of them had quite calmly informed her that they were going to a dance.

The two most infamous killers in the world, who shredded lives like confetti, were going to a ball.

And what surprised her even more was that Aspen had a date that he dashed off to meet. A human. A sane girl, who didn't deserve what Fate had done to her. His soulmate.

At that point, Blue had handed her a neat vodka that Jacqui had gulped down in the faint hope the world would become a more rational place.

For a start, it had utterly screwed up her plans.

Jacqui was one of the few people allowed to come and go from Ryars Valley as she chose, after weeks of bargaining and bribery with the Elders when Aspen first moved here. And one of the few people privy to the location of Aspen's home.

There were some very, very powerful people who would give her anything to know where he was. But there was only one capable of destroying him.

And now Laburnum Martin was coming to Ryars Valley...for nothing.

"A ball," Blue Malefici agreed from where he was picking out notes on a guitar, and the chords thrummed in harmony with his voice. "You'll meet her there."

"She goes to parties?" Jacqui said dumbly. "I thought she'd be taking over the world."

A jaunty riff rippled through the air, light playing off those exquisitely crafted cheekbones that she knew felt flat and smooth as polished stone to the touch. She knew because she had touched him once, for a dare, when they had both been so much younger.

She remembered because he had woken up, and all she had seen were the ghostly flat pinpoints of his eyes before he had left the first scar she had ever had, starting where the column of her throat joined her head, and slanting jaggedly down to end beneath her right armpit.

He'd done that with a pencil.

"Hardly," he answered, and the careless plucking of notes became a subtle melody. "Ambition means nothing to her."

"The money, then?" she asked.

The song stopped. "Your motivation, I believe, not hers."

Hell's horrors, but she hated that sudden shrewdness that he used like a spear, testing her defences. All right, so she was a mercenary in the truest sense. What of it? Why did he see it as something so inferior? All she knew was that she was good at killing, even if she didn't care for it much. Write enough zeros, and she could overcome her distaste.

"Why, then?" she challenged. "What does she want with Pursang?"

"Who said she wanted it?" he murmured, and the notes began to thrum, moving up and down like feet upon stairs.

"She didn't...?" Jacqui paused. That was stupid. He was playing with her again, gulling her like he did everyone. She wanted to insist on the truth, but knew better. Blue's honesty came at a price.

She shot a half-envious glance at him. When it came to good looks, Blue had shouldered his way through the line, held a knife to someone's throat and demanded more than his fair share. And got it.

He was dressed with devastating simplicity - an alarmingly tight azure top and black trousers, and black sneakers of all things, the only ornamentation a silver-clasped belt and a black watch - and it only served to emphasise the stark splendour of his face.

No one would care how casually he was dressed, not when they could stare at the drowning-deep eyes that seemed all smeared shadows lit by tiny flickers of blue. Not when they could watch his easy, voracious movements and listen to the cyanide darkness of his voice.

Jacqui had to admit he was a very attractive creature.

Not attractive enough for her to ever do more than wonder. She had seen him kiss someone - and slide a knife under their ribs at the same moment. She seen him smile while firelight guttered on his face and screams echoed.

"What is she, this soulmate of yours?" she asked, smoothing out her skirt. She would pass, she decided, glancing at her reflection in the lifeless television screen, and raking her hands through her messy hair until it fell in a more pleasing way. "Powerful?"

"In her way," he answered, and the song became haunting, with odd discords that raised goosebumps on her skin. "She likes to lie to herself."

"A weakness, then," Jacqui said, trying to pry anything from him that she could use to overthrow this girl. She'd be formidable - how could she be Blue Malefici's soulmate and be anything but?

He plucked the guitar and a low, clear note rang. "No."

She watched his hands, which safer than his face; for who knew what terrible deeds would be revealed there? His fingers moved lightly over the strings, drawing an echo of heaven into the world.

"Why haven't you killed her?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I could, I suppose, if I didn't mind my own impending madness. But...no, I don't want to kill her." An eerie light gleamed hard in his pupils. "Not now. Far more fun, my dear, to let her live and know that I have broken her into pieces. I did, after all, promise that."

"But you haven't," she said, and hastily planned her escape route as the strings stilled.

His mouth curled, slow as a claw sliding from a cat's foot. "Watch and learn." And then he put down the guitar, and held out a hand to her. "The web is closing, and the best part is that she can feel it. She knows what I'm doing - and she can't do anything about it."

She could almost believe he was just a boy as they walked from the door and out to the battered machine he called a car. "Why?" she said, sliding into the passenger seat. "How?"

The car started with a rattle, like a man's last breath. "Tell me who your first kill was, Jacqueline Trehet."

She stared, confused, He knew that, knew it well and had only shrugged indifferently when she had told him shakily, unsure if she was fit to pass this last test. "My mother."

"Why?"

"The price was right," she answered simply.

Those long eyelashes dropped, and shielded his eyes as if amused. "I meant why her. Why no one else?"

"Because..." And then she understood with admiration and yes, fear, what he intended. "Because love is the strongest force there is. We cannot afford to feel it - love makes us weak. It destroys us."

"Correct," he said, and something cold, and old grew in his eyes, screaming his inhumanity to the skies. "It's very simple, my dear, and so, so effective. The one weapon that cuts so deep that the wound will never heal, yet never spills a single drop of blood."

She thought she felt a chill wind rush through the vehicle, or maybe it was only the breath of this darkling being that carried those soft and icy words upon it.

"Love is the sharpest blade there is."

X - X - X - X - X

The boy wasn't like the rest of them, and so he was beyond the Pack's power to find. He thought not like a predator, but like a predator who had seen itself as prey.

Flick could understand that. Maybe that was why she could always find him.

He crouched there in the shadows with mud streaked about his eyes, and cuts and bruises making his skin a tender rainbow, bone pushing against his skin as if trying to flee this grieving cage.

"They've all gone now," she remarked to the empty air. She knew better than to make eye contact; it was enough to ignite the sparks that made him run like his feet were on fire. "Donna decided they're going to crash the ball tonight."

"So?" was all he said.

She turned her head in his direction, ready to spin away if he took so much as a step back. "Come and eat. You're a bag of bones."

"Not hungry."

Flick chuckled. "Sure, that's why I can hear your stomach from over here. You don't have to act that way with me - I don't care how goddamn screwed-up you are. You've had all the pity you'll get from me."

"Oh?" A step forward in those crinkled jeans that were scratched and worn to almost nothing.

She let her eyes drift to his form cautiously. "Yeah. What you're doing to yourself is ridiculous."

Cern Akafren came into the light thrown off by the campfire. His mouth looked like it was made for smiling; even now, when he looked nothing but wary, it was turned up slightly at the corners. "You don't understand."

She threw a soda can across the clearing, not caring that it was half full. "Bullshit! You've got the whole Pack feeling all sorry for you just because your girlfriend died."

"More than that." But she caught the note of curiosity wavering in his voice. She was probably the first person who hadn't pitied him.

But it made her so angry. He reminded her of herself, that stupid Catholic schoolgirl, saying her prayers dutifully and believing in a god who hadn't heard her pleas. She had cried, yes, but that hadn't changed anything, so she had run, and that had changed everything.

She had made herself who she was, and she was proud of it. No one looked at her as prey. No one gave her any respect she hadn't earned.

"So she was your soulmate," she snapped. "You think it's any different from anyone else dying? It happens. People lose love every day, but you don't see them running away from life."

He stepped around the fire now, and she could see the dreadful thinness of his arms. "Not running."

"Yeah, you are. It's okay to run," she said, the anger winding down at his wounded, uncertain face so scraped and battered. "But you got to stop sometime. Me, I stopped here. I like it. Maybe it's not easy, but it's mine. I'm the only one who controls it."

"So am I," he retorted, and sat himself down, lying his arms flat on the table.

She pulled at her copper hair, pulling strands in front of her eyes so she could focus on them instead of him. "Uh-huh. Why are you so afraid to face your friends then? They seem like a nice bunch. That Cougar guy came looking for you today."

It would have been better if his eyes had held lunacy, or denial, or anything but the terrible and lingering suffering. "That's different."

"How?" she demanded, rapping her fist on the table. "And don't give me one of those two word answers. It bugs me."

A miraculous smile appeared, and on his gaunt face she saw the imprint of who he had been. "You sound like Cougar."

Flick grinned, elated by her breakthrough. No one had talked to him properly in days. "That's insulting. I've heard how arrogant he is."

"He can't help it," said Cern, sounding almost astonished that he was talking to her about something so trivial. "He's a Redfern. He likes to live up to the reputation."

"Live down to, you mean." Flick found he was meeting her eyes now, not ducking away. "And you're avoiding the question."

He brushed mud from his face, flakes scattering on the table. "They all have soulmates," he muttered. "I can't...it feels...it hurts."

Flick leaned forward to glare at him. "I'm going to tell you something you're not going to like," she said slowly, enunciating each word. "The natural state of people is to be in pairs. Until they are, they are always looking for their special someone. You can't hide from that forever. You don't have to like it - but you're going to have to learn to live with it."

I didn't like it much either, she nearly added. But I can look at couples now and not see...something else.

He stared, all bone and bruises, oddly beautiful in the gloom, yet it was the evanescent glory of a plucked rose, already dying. "I..."

She waited impatiently. Flick was no good with waiting, but she tried.

His voice broke a little on that helpless whisper. "I don't know where to start."

A bag of crisps rustled as she opened it. "Just start with the little things," Flick advised. Each piece of normality was a step closer to hope and life. "I don't know about you...but I'm starved."

He blinked, and his gaze moved from her hands to her face, and back to the food she held. Then he reached out, and took it from her.

"I'm ravenous," he admitted very quietly.

That's enough of a start, Flick thought as she sat there in the warm evening munching junk food with a boy who said nothing and ate hesitantly, neither of them pretending that this would be easy, or even that it would be better.

But it would do. It would do very nicely.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya breathed in sharply as they entered the hall. It looked utterly amazing; strung with silver and black decorations, thronged with an undulating sea of three hundred people who talked and shouted over the pounding music that caught many in its rhythm and drew them onto the dance floor. It was dimly lit; candles were smattered around the room close to the buffet tables, guttering in the cool wind that blew in from the balcony and out of the patio where tables were full of people.

Stairs ran up the back of the room to the upstairs gallery and to the numerous balconies and alcoves that made the hall so popular for parties. Pillars supported the upper floor, and divided the dance floor - lit only by the flickering chandelier - from the shadowy porticos.

No wonder the tickets had been so expensive.

"My oh my," Lisa whispered, "Look at Ben Skykes! I never knew that boy could look as good in a tux as he does in those tight tennis shorts." A flicker in her face. "He looks a little like Cern."

Chatoya followed her glance to the dark haired boy who was talking to his friends. They were all crowded close to the buffet table and the drinks that had probably already been spiked with at least six different brands of alcohol.

And then she froze as her eyes met another pair, a stingingly cool cobalt.

_Ill-met by strobelight, proud Titania,_ he drawled, each word like a burning touch upon her heart.

Blue straightened from where he had been leaning against a pillar, the shadows sliding down his face and throat, his skin that snow-pure pale colour that spoke of sunless spaces and darkness. The link felt unbearably strong, almost as it had been in that fraught lesson when she had seemed to be merely an extended part of his thoughts and motions.

_That's her?_ a shocked and undeniably feminine voice gawked. It had just the hint of a French accent, and Chatoya identified the speaker as the unfairly stylish girl who had short-cropped messy dark hair tipped with platinum and copper, and a bemused expression. _But she's-_

_I can hear you, you know!_ she said pointedly.

Chatoya vaguely noticed Lisa hurrying over to grab the still-single Ben, possibly hoping to blind him with that bright dress. Jepar and Alisha had drifted away with Thom, all three involved in an animated argument, and left Chatoya to move into the relative anonymity of the portico and watch as Blue and the girl detached themselves from the crowd and stalked over.

For reasons that Chatoya couldn't fathom, a lot of people were looking at her in a very strange, eager way. She would have said it was the same way that the girls regarded Blue, or the boys wistfully looked after Tali, but no one ever saw her that way, so it had to be something else.

The girl was striding over, her small mouth open in amazement. "But you're a witch!" she hissed as she reached Chatoya, poking her angrily. "You? You're going to take over Pursang?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" the smooth and snaky voice of Blue cut in. "Chatoya Irkil, this is Jacqueline Trehet, the second-in-command of Pursang. You need no introduction."

The girl spun viciously. "You bet she doesn't! Her? She's got about as much power as used battery! I won't take orders from her."

"I do have a name," Chatoya snapped, anger beginning to spiral up through her stomach. "I'm not just a random pronoun."

The girl's face held such ferocity that it wasn't lovely at all with her long eyes scrunched in ire, and her mouth puckered. "You should be a random corpse. You're nothing but filth! Witches! You're just glorified vermin."

"You could always challenge her to single combat," Blue suggested with perfect innocence. Chatoya could feel the connection seething like hot tar. I'm getting emotional, she thought. It's me this time.

"I wouldn't waste my breath," the girl said with deep contempt. She stepped up to Chatoya, and then realised her mistake as she had to crane her neck. Even the girl's boots left her half a foot short of Chatoya. "You aren't worthy of Pursang! You wouldn't last ten minutes."

A moment ago, Chatoya hadn't been decided. But just this girl's arrogance was enough to make her sign on the dotted line, though she didn't say that. She knew better than to act on her emotions. "I've survived worse than you," she said coldly, letting her face meld into impassivity. "And he's right beside you."

The girl stared, obviously lost for words. Then she turned to Blue. "I won't stand for this!" she told him in a dangerously shaking voice. "Not now, not ever."

"I don't see you doing anything about it," he pointed out with devastating calm.

Damn you, Chatoya thought. Damn you, I didn't want Pursang. But now I have no choice.

The girl raised herself on her toes in a futile bid to get at all close to Blue's eye-level. "Maybe you won't see until it's too late," she snarled, and strode off.

"And there goes our dear Jacqueline of all trades," Blue drawled, "Bringing peace whenever she goes."

Now Chatoya turned her attention to him, to the mocking line of his mouth and the bladed beauty of his eyes, hooded and fixed on her with staunch intensity.

She glared right back, and was unnerved to see the tiny bright scraps in his eyes that had been in her dream. "What do you want?"

A lazy shrug. "Mmm...let's just say that it's too early for me to tell you without getting arrested."

"A little forward, aren't you?"

His gaze travelled pointedly along the slit in the dress and moved higher. A light touch trailed over her shoulder, piercing sparks under her skin, and one eyebrow arched. "Not as forward as you."

I'm going to kill Lisa and Tali, she thought. "I'd rather be forward than backward."

"Shame your friends can't say the same," he remarked.

"Leave them out of it!" She stepped back from him, face blazing with anger. "This is between you and me."

"That dress certainly is," he remarked idly and without warning, smiled. It was utterly without malice or cruelty and his charm made her halt, briefly unsure. "I'd prefer not to fight tonight. I was enjoying myself."

"Why, did you poison the punch?"

Those piercing eyes narrowed for a split second into blue blades. "No. But good idea. Next time I feel an urge to purge, I'll have to try that."

Was he joking? She stared at the unemotional face. Blue Malefici didn't joke.

"You seem somewhat irate, witch of mine."

"I am not yours," she hissed, "If we were the last two people alive, I'd want a recount. Though gods know how long that would take with you."

The barb went home. She thought she glimpsed a flash of respect in his face, and his voice froze like ice thrown in the arctic air. "Touche. But it was necessary for Jacqueline to meet you."

"So she can kill me?"

His mouth curled. "I hardly think she will succeed where I have not. She likes to dance with Death, but never too closely." His eyes slid over her shoulder. "Whereas I..."

She nearly stepped back as utter wickedness filled his eyes, gold pulsing outwards and glowing dusky on his cheekbones, so swift and sinful it was as though she saw a different person. He put a hand under her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"I prefer my encounters up close and personal."

She was speechless for a second, then drew back. "I don't," Chatoya said flatly, and catching the eye of the boy who had sidled up to them, agreed when he asked her to dance.

As she let him bear her off, she could have sworn she a whisper light as a kiss brushed her ears.

"_Liar._"

X - X - X - X - X

Come on, come on, Cougar Redfern thought resentfully as he glared at the shut door of the house where Aspen Martin lived with his girlfriend's family. He had spent a futile hour searching for Aspen, until it finally occurred to him that the lamia boy had moved in here.

If I have to save your ass, you can at least answer the goddamn door. I'm missing the ball for this.

An image of Toya in that dress flashed into his head, Toya like he had never seen her. With her dark hair softly curled, flung artlessly about her shoulders and snuggling down her back; with one leg flashing in that deliciously revealing dress, and an odd, darling hesitancy in her eyes that she was unaware of as she waited for his approval.

And he had approved.

You're not the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, he thought to her, but you outshine them all tonight.

He jumped as the door was flung open, light blasting into his eyes, and a demon stared at him.

"What do you want?" it demanded, and as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he realised it was a small Asian woman with her hair in curlers, and the same piercing eyes as Tamara Slone. "Tam's already gone out with that hoodlum horror she calls a boyfriend."

"Actually, I'm looking for Aspen," Cougar volunteered, beginning to understand where Tam got her headstrong attitude from. He tried not to look at the carving knife she was holding.

Suspicion hung about her like perfume, yet Cougar could have sworn he saw a glimmer of humour dance over her face. "He's got a date."

"So have I. And she's a lot prettier than Aspen."

"Mo-om!" a voice shouted from the house, "Celia's hitting me!"

"Hit her back! It's a tough world out there, Billy, you'll have to learn to take hard knocks," Mrs Slone shouted before turning her attention back to him. "You, boy, he'll be at the ball, no doubt indulging in licentious pleasures."

The disapproval in her tone was that sharp, definite sort that made Cougar instantly resolve to partake of as much licentious pleasure as he could lay his hands on.

Her nostrils flared as she grudgingly conceded, "You can leave a message if you want."

Alarmed by the shrieks and crashes coming from inside the house, Cougar shook his head. "No, I'll catch up with him there. Um...have a nice evening."

A withering look. "I doubt it." The door slammed in his face before it flew open with a rush of warm air. "And if you catch my daughter having any kind of carnal relations with that young man, you can tell him that castration is not limited to bulls."

Slam.

Cougar had to resist the urge to salute.

"And I thought Tam was the unfortunate one," he muttered to the air. "I hope Bernie runs into her. She's make mincemeat of him." That thought cheered him up immensely.

And now...he smiled faintly, a tall shadow among many in the halfling moon. Back to the ball. And Toya.

X - X - X - X - X

That was her? That was it?

Some witch was going to take over Pursang - some weak, insignificant little witch, and Jacqui was supposed to stand by and let it happen? Not likely!

For a while she stormed about, pushing through people, crazy plans spinning through her head to get rid of this revolting vermin who thought she could have Pursang. And then her eyes lighted on them, totally by chance in her fourth circling of the place. Something had struck her as faintly off, and now she knew what.

Here they were. She found them easily, a tight little nucleus of people - no, creatures - who stared at the revellers with sullen eyes, though their mouths were stretched in laughter. They didn't abide by the formal code, scruffy in torn, dirty clothes, but the other vermin either ignored them, or passed them by with fearful and resentful glances. No one dared or cared to stop them.

She knew a wolf pack when she saw one, and this wasn't it.

This was just a collection of outcasts who ran together for strength. They all sang the lone wolf's lament, and made it a symphony of voices blending so they could pretend they weren't alone.

She only needed a couple to agree. So she sat, and she watched, and she looked for the ones with the gleam of madness, desperation in their eyes. The ones who were at the edge, staring down at a fall into darkness. They would do anything to cling on; all they wanted was to go back to their true pack.

Jacqui was prepared to offer them that sugar-coated lie. And they were prepared to accept.

X - X - X - X - X

Several hectic dances later, the fifth boy she had never even spoken to before let go of her with a whisper about his phone number, and received an announcement of her celibacy. Chatoya fanned herself in the increasingly stuffy room, watching Lisa flash her a thumbs-up from where she was chatting to Ben.

As the sixth hopeful approached, she ditched any attempts at civility or dignity and ran up the stairs.

The alcoves were filled with people, some in clusters, some alone, some in couples. She flew past them, praying that wretched boy wasn't following, until she found an empty balcony and escaped out onto it, flinging back her head to drink in the cooler air.

She sighed and leaned on the balcony, closing her eyes briefly to enjoy the lull.

"Why aren't you inside?" a voice asked. It was dark, beautiful and utterly hypnotic. She knew who it was by the way her heart was seized in a vice of fear and hate. "Everyone's dancing and I've had several people ask me where that mysterious girl I was talking to went."

"There's no one I want in there."

"That's because I'm out here," he drawled.

She laughed, unable to help herself. "Oh, the ego has landed."

"As you will, lovely lady." He was standing beside her suddenly, and shot her a swift, unreadable glance as she stepped away. "I'm not contagious."

"I beg to differ."

Teeth glinted. "I like it when you beg."

She kicked him in the shin and to her immense infuriation, he laughed. He was laughing. At her! And she was astonished at how it transformed him. The coldness, the hardness dissolved at once and left behind this undeniably appealing boy whose unusual looks made him not alien, but unique.

"Why won't you just get angry?" she shouted. Fortunately, the music from inside was so loud no one could hear her. She kicked him again. "Stop laughing! It's not funny, you murdering bastard!"

That silenced him and he simply stared at her with his head tilted slightly, his face intense. "Oh, but it is," he answered finally. "And my dear, I may be a bastard, but you're rather a bitch yourself."

"Try getting the message," she snapped, very, very tempted to kick him again, this time somewhere a little more painful. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

A cryptic smile was no answer. "Because a breathtaking woman should never be alone."

"Goddess, just stop lying to me!"

"I'm God, actually," he said mildly. "If you really feel you have to address me that way. And I don't lie. It's not worth my bother."

"Oh, just leave me alone," she said with all the curtness she could muster. "I really don't care." She turned away, and felt the tension, the anger drain away. He must have gone.

If she concentrated on the wisps of bruised clouds floating across the dark of the night, she could forget he was nearby. She started to count stars, soon hopelessly lost in the mad infinity of the sparkling drifts, and before she could stop herself, thought how much like those stars he was. Maybe there was something powerful burning in him, still it was so far away that he seemed cold and distant and yet...somehow beautiful, somehow the centre of a thousand dreams and wishes.

But touch a star, and you would burn up without a sound.

Time passed smoothly and silently as she blocked out the pounding music and hurried voices of the ball to just watch the night. It had been so long since she had done this, paused to feel the spin of the earth and remember what it truly was to be a witch.

There was no moon tonight, only darkness. The night was so often painted as black, as endless, as soulless. But if you learned to listen and if you looked, truly looked, you would see it was only a thousand colours; shades of blue dipping into purple haze and grey fringes. Dark, soft green, so easy to sink into and simmering, smouldering garnet. Bronze and copper, all the secret fires of the night that so many people never knew.

Arms slipping gently around her waist but she was attuned to the stealthy beat of a night full of shadowed rainbows, forgetting that she was not part of that pulsing heart. If she focused, there was the sigh of wind that brushed her hair and the bowed willows around the lake, kissing the water trippingly.

Someone nuzzling at her neck, and there was only the patterns the shadows threw across the russet earth, black slipping over red as the trees above danced slowly, so slowly.

Someone turning her and simply looking at her, with eyes that were no colour of the night, but a blue that seemed to sweep up into the timeless, raw cobalt of the first dawn. And the night, she thought, which was all darkness and mystery and softness, would never hold that fiery colour.

The night was gentle, but it cared nothing for who it held.

"You are beautiful." His words were calm and quiet, flowing as tenderly as the rhythm of the night did through her heart. It felt the same; smooth and alive and right. "You are so beautiful."

She tilted her head up, and met a kiss that was full of that same softness and mystery, and realised that the night had many colours.

_Everything you are falls from the sky like a star  
Everything you are  
Whatever ever you are_


	12. Chapter Eleven

Sorry this has taken so long. Thank you so much to all of you who are so fabulously patient, you deserve rains of chocolate and kittens. :-) Thanks to:

**Leopardess, Night Goddess, Magelet, Cianna, Mandy, Eleyne, Adelaide, Dark Princess, Water Soul, Amber, Meg, Werepanther, Piper Rose, Innocent, Diomede, Midnight Haze, Queen Kat **and finally the divine **Domz**.

Feedback is adored like hot chocolate, hot sun, and hot bread. I love hearing what you think, and criticism is very welcome.

The lyrics are taken from _Beauty On The Fire _by Natalie Imbruglia (Album: White Lilies Island). Gorgeous.  
Ki

**Chimera Part Eleven**

_Here it comes again  
Cannot outrun my desire  
Cover my descent  
And throw the beauty on the fire _

It began with a kiss.

In films, the happy ending was sealed with a kiss. But this was Blue, hewn from ice and seared by fire, a paradox, a mystery, and an enemy.

For him, endings meant one thing only.

So this was a beginning.

Maybe it was the first word of a peace treaty. Maybe it was the first bullet of a war. But it began something all the same, like a flame touched to a trail of gunpowder.

She had kissed him before, yes, but that had always been in hate, in anger, in fear, trying to shut herself away before he could plunder and destroy the most precious parts of herself. Trying to shock, or distract, trying to throw herself far from him, not writhing into the fetter of his embrace.

Now the connection crackled lividly, a distant roaring in her ears. Magic rampaged through her blood, leaping up at his touch with sizzling intensity; dragon power was mixed with it, heavy and potent, breeding something as unholy as he, and as helpless as she.

Unholy and helpless, like the distant hissing of fire chewing a path along a fuse to something far greater...

Maybe if they had been other people, there would have been thoughts and words and decisions, but there was only instinct and delight pulsing from the diamond-hard coldness where he sat in her soul. Time meant nothing, rationality meant nothing, even nothing meant nothing. The void itself could not throw her from this.

It began with a kiss.

X - X - X - X - X

"How are things with our sexy tennis player?" Tali asked as she met Lisa in the bathroom, where the usual collection of girly chats, make-up repairs and crying fits were going on. The dragon frowned at herself in the mirror, pulled her skirt down and the straps up. "Game, set and match?"

The made vampire shrugged, and dug a lipstick out of her bag. "Ye-es..."

"That doesn't sound good," the dragon commented. "Don't tell me you don't like what's under the packaging!"

Right now I'd Fed-Ex him to Australia, Lisa felt like saying, because he's not the last guy I kissed. He's not Cern, however much I kid myself.

"I don't know," she murmured, staring fixedly at her own expression so she wouldn't have to face the searchlight stare of Tali. "I guess he's just not my type."

"Hah!" Tali ran her hands under the tap, glaring at her chipped nails. "I nearly dislocated my wrist trying to fight off Mark Stephanos. Honestly, he's so slimy I kept expecting him to have tentacles. God knows what I've caught." She shuddered delicately.

Lisa blinked as she carefully outlined her mouth with gold lipstick. "Where was Jay?"

"Doing the Macarena," Tali said dryly. "With some girl whose chest resembles Silicon Valley. She just grabbed him!"

"Well," she felt compelled to say, "it's not exactly common knowledge that you two are an item." After all, Tali didn't really go in for public affection, though Jepar did and often had. When he and Chatoya had been dating, Lisa had often felt like slapping a fifteen rating on them.

"Guess so," the girl muttered. "Hey, have you seen Toya lately?"

"No. She disappeared. Ran off upstairs just before the Macarena started."

Tali froze. "No. I saw Blue go up there."

They stared at each other. "You're sure it was the same time?" Lisa said, feeling her skin go cold. Surely Toya wouldn't let him get near but then...who could stop Blue? What if he tried to kill her?

A nod, and her sapphire eyes shifted from coolness to concern. "You don't think..."

"Let's go and find her," Lisa said grimly. "Maybe it's nothing, but..."

A baffled Jepar shouted after them as they tore up the stairs, and then tried to disentangle himself from the very drunk girl who had clamped onto him like a limpet. They ignored him, though Tali cast one brief glance over her shoulder.

Why were there so many goddamn alcoves? Lisa thought as she and Tali each took a side of the gallery and began to elbow inelegantly through people, looking in alcove after alcove, balcony after balcony. The place was a warren of niches, filled with crowds or couples, most inebriated, some amorous, all in the way.

Then she came to the end, where there were less people, and not expecting to see anything, glanced at the final balcony.

Her mouth dropped open, and then Lisa actually rubbed her eyes to check what she was seeing was real.

It was.

"Have you-" Tali stopped as Lisa shushed her with one fiery look. "What?" Her gaze swung to the balcony. "Oh..."

There was only one person with that daring, beguiling dress and that wavy tumble of black hair. That tumble of black hair that the boy she was kissing had one hand tangled in, the other sprawled at her spine. They were stark against the night, black and blue, intertwined in their own world.

Lisa found she had bitten her lip so hard she was drawing blood, She heard Alisha make a small indignant sound and forcibly hauled the dragon into the relative safety of the crowd.

"Oh my god!" Tali shrieked, her ocean-blue eyes wide with shock. All her composure was erased - she was actually jumping up and down on the spot. "Oh...my...god!"

"I can't believe it!" gasped Lisa, wondering if what she had just seen was real. Surely not. "Did someone spike the punch?"

"No, I've been drinking it," murmured the dragon vaguely, still staring towards the balcony as if expecting it to vanish in a puff of smoke. "And I'm fine. But oh my god..."

"I know!" she said. "Blue and Toya...no...she detests him. He's a complete...I don't even have a word for it, it's that bad!"

"He's going to eat her alive," Tali said wildly. "That must be it!"

"Hon, I'm starting to think someone did spike the punch," Lisa murmured. She tried to calm down. Had it been Toya and Blue Malefici? Yes. They were soulmates? Yes. She knew that. Blue had told her himself.

It must be the soulmate link.

It had to be.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya didn't really know when they had stopped kissing, but they must have, because she could feel the warm breeze on her face again, and the tight curl of his arms about her body, and the way they were pressed together. A strange feeling turned just behind her ribs, as though a hot coal revolved there, and there was an odd hissing in her head.

"What was that in aid of?" she said finally, lips by his ear, though her voice didn't sound quite her own. It was far too breathless.

He did move then, putting her away from him a little. Shocked, she realised his eyes weren't at all blue anymore, but the succulent gold of honey. And there was a look in them that she couldn't quite describe, something between surprise and spite.

"Gratuitous self-indulgence," he answered, and drew his hands up her waist lightly, making her squirm. "I was curious."

Curious. "About what exactly?" she said sharply.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

She could feel the barriers drawing up, each word a brick in them. Inevitable, but somehow painful - part of her yearned to keep the coldness away for another instant, keep away reality because reality was so cold and harsh.

Brick by brick, his hostility locked her back into her safe and secure darkness. When those walls fell, maybe all she saw was the light of her own funeral pyre, but it cast warmth all the same.

The world was so cold.

"Perhaps you're not as much of a fool as I thought. You're afraid," he said, switching subjects like someone else might flip over pages. "Even now."

"Especially now."

Especially now she hadn't resisted him. Killer of her parents and killer of her brother, but when she looked at him, she was seeing something else, something new. Look at his eyes, and she would glimpse them shut, eyelashes fanned over his cheekbones. Gaze at his mouth, and she would feel its imprint.

Damn him.

"It's not easy, is it?" he said, fingers sliding into her hair. He regarded her with a face wholly impassive and all she could think was how that exquisite bone structure had felt to her fingertips, smooth and illicit as ivory. "Am I making it difficult for you, Chatoya Irkil? You'd like to see me gone. Or would you?"

His grip tightened suddenly, and she yelped as he dragged her hair back. The other hand seized her waist and bent her backwards, so he leaned over her.

His stare swallowed her whole.

"You gave into me very easily," he whispered, bringing his head down, down until he could lean his forehead on hers. The tilt of her back pulled her stomach muscles painfully tight, and this close, she could smell his scent, an odd combination of black ice and musk. "Do you honestly think you can handle Pursang?"

Fury rocketed up through her head like a bullet, exploding in words. "I handled you!"

Those heavy eyelids dropped, and his voice poured forth intimacy, a peach-down softness that pierced through her armour as if it didn't even exist. "Oh yes, how very true."

"Stop it!" she snarled, and wriggled free though she knew in truth he was releasing her. "Goddess, what is wrong with you? Don't do this to me, please!"

"Do what?" he inquired, and slid close again to toy with the strap of her dress. She was horrified that though her feet stepped back, her mind resisted. "Witch of mine, why am I always to blame? Which of us here is dressed to...kill?"

Her eyes were vast jungles as she looked at him, jungles bared to the axe.

"If you want to play seductress," he continued, and slid the strap from her shoulder onto her arm, "be prepared for a game that doesn't abide by mere rules."

"I'm not," she said, and drew strength into her voice. His fingers danced on her shoulders until she snapped her hand over his wrist, and regretted it as something like triumph shimmered through his eyes. "I'm not a seductress."

A laugh escaped him like a lover moving under twilight. "No..." He had her backed to the balcony barrier, the cast iron hard and painful at her back. "Seduction requires a certain coldness, and you feel too much."

"Better too much than nothing," she threw at him, hurling words like spears in the hope that one would hit, one would find a gap and sting him.

"Nothing? Do you truly believe that?" The building's light haloed him in gold yet blanketed his face with shadow. "Oh, you disappoint me. You can't deny what you have never understood."

"I can deny you," she hissed, and forced herself to move forward though it meant being not even an inch from him. "And I won't even pretend I understand you at all."

"Have they redefined denial recently?" he drawled, and tilted his head that fraction sideways, that fraction that made her breathe in, feeling an unborn kiss fluttering between them, and try to step back only to find his arms a far sterner barrier than mere iron. "Please, deny me again. If that's your idea of denial, I'm positively desperate to see what punishment might entail."

"Punishment?" She mustered all the scorn she could, and drew herself up in that careless embrace. She hated the secret smile in his eyes, that deep and distant reserve telling her that she could never win. "I wouldn't waste the effort."

"Who says it would be a waste?" he purred, and before she could move, kissed her bare shoulder. The warm, silken sensation of his mouth froze her quite still, and she felt her defiance withering in the face of such helplessness. How could she fight this? How could she hope to defeat this chameleon that switched not colour but emotion?

Moving from her shoulder to her collarbone, and trailing lower. To her throat, surely, and her blood.

Stop him, dear goddess, stop this now. And the words rose like Venus from the foaming waters, sacred and saving, near-silent in this subtle snare.

"Now who's the seducer?"

Before her heart could take another fretful beat, he glided back.

Her feet scuttled around him, and she desperately tied to ignore the casual, derisive way he let his hands drift out, brush her skin just to see her recoil despite the frissons that swelled through her. Amusement curled freely on his mouth, and in the half-lift of one eyebrow.

"True," he assented. His voice lashed around her like a whip. "Perhaps you should be careful, Chatoya Irkil. I will let you play your games. But others will not be so indulgent. Watch the shadows."

She searched his face for any sign of irony.

"I always do now," she said bitterly. "You reminded me that I should be afraid of the dark."

It wasn't until she was halfway down the hallway that she realised he had never answered her question.

X - X - X - X - X

Away from the loudness and the chaos and the music, in the lapping shallows of the lake, a boy sat.

His face was tilted up to the night sky, and his eyes seemed to widen and draw in the stars until they were two orbs of fire, a lost piece of the sun set free at last. The water was black and still as a mirror, and his hands were sunk in it to the elbows, as though he had been melded into this odd looking-glass.

The assassin clung to the tree she held, and watched him with rapt fascination. Her sandy hair hid the lustre of her eyes, in case he should look up from the echoing emptiness of the lake, and her form was easy to hide among the wealth of rushes.

What was he?

Perhaps it roused a glimmer of marvel even in her atrophied heart like a piece of mica catching the light in granite. Perhaps if she had known it was Fireblade, who had crushed lives like sand, she would have feared.

You're so alive, she told him silently. And I am so dead.

But you are ageless and I am young...how can this be? Where did I get lost?

She half-smiled; the question was pointless. She was no longer lost; there was new purpose in her life, purpose that revolved around Blue Malefici, casting his shadow over the world. She, the one person who had stepped forward when the powers that be had sought a slaughterer.

A flare of light snapped her back to the strange boy, the one who had felt as wrong in her head as a drop of oil in water.

He was haloed in thick orange fire. But as she watched, it seemed to spill forth from him, light flowing over his body and into the water. Not understanding any of this - how could fire touch water and not die? - she slithered forward on her stomach.

He was a mere speck in this vast lagoon, yet the water before him was changing, glowing the deep red of hot metal. Then, as if the lake was gasoline and not water, the surface exploded with a soft hiss into an immensity of flames.

She shielded her eyes, and felt smoky heat roll over her flesh. One eyelid opened cautiously to see the boy standing before a blazing sea, a black silhouette on acres and acres of dancing orange.

What on earth-

No, not earth. He was nothing from this world.

She wriggled closer, careful to keep her body screened behind the high rushes, and her mind screened behind subtle shields, shields unnoticeable unless you actively sought them. The flames ran almost up to the waters' edge, and soon she was only metres from them, squirming in the incredible heat.

And then pictures blossomed in the fire. Agape, she cringed back as Blue Malefici appeared in the flames as if he were standing there, sharp blues and indigos against the orange tongues.

"...don't care if you were about to discover the secret of the universe, which incidentally, won't be found in her mouth," he was saying, and now another boy appeared in the picture.

Aspen Martin. The girl felt her eyebrows raise. So he had survived the enclave. He must have been stronger than she had always thought. Even vermin scum like her had been able to see how damaged he had been, running away from that ghastly father that she had only - thankfully - seen from a distance.

"I was enjoying myself," Aspen said shortly, leaning back against what must have been a wall though nothing appeared in the flames bar their two forms, He produced a cigarette. "I am allowed occasionally."

Blue was only watching him with that patient, unreadable look she had seen so often. He was so controlled; every nuance, every gesture was purposeful and thought out. He combined a cold intelligence with a deadly ability to think on his feet, and she liked to think that she had achieved something similar.

"I thought you knew better than to get involved," the vampire said, throwing Aspen a lighter.

Aspen looked uneasily at the lighter - Blue didn't smoke, she remembered - then lit up.

"She's my soulmate," he answered, his odd eyes glittering the same colour as the flames about them; one the smoky blue of the fire's core, the other a citrine yellow. "It's hard not to. And maybe I want to be involved."

"You're a fool then," Blue said, and the slender, mocking smile she knew so well flowed onto his mouth. "She's vermin, Martin, nothing but a fine vintage in a pretty package, and she'll be dust one day."

"Aren't we all?" Then Aspen stopped and squinted at the lamia boy. "Can I smell perfume?"

"Not mine, I'm afraid," he drawled, his voice the purr of the tiger crouched in camouflage, content to watch the antelope move before it but at every moment, that sense that it might flick its striped tail and pounce.

The cigarette dropped unnoticed from Aspen's hand as he stared. "Is she still alive? Who was she?"

"Chatoya Irkil," Blue said casually. Something flashed in his eyes, something entirely inhuman and unpleasant. "Amusing creature. Very...responsive."

"Well, I'll be-"

"I rather think you have been." The swift and venomous words silenced Aspen, a stab to the heart that bled memory rather than blood.

The girl watched Aspen struggle to regain his composure. Clever of you, she thought at Blue's mirage. A neat move. Would I have thought to use it?

"That's not the issue." He was tense now, somehow more vulnerable against Blue's icy composure. But then, wasn't everyone? "I thought you just warned me away from getting involved - since when have you gone in for interpersonal relationships?"

He was still, so supremely still he could have been a sculpture of Michelangelo's. "I am not involved," said Blue serenely, and she thought how neatly he fitted into this world of flames, a personal reminder of hell. "But she is."

Aspen might not have had Blue's disdain, but he was visibly angry. Odd, she thought, so angry over some girl who was clearly nothing.

"She's a good person!" he snapped. "Fine, so she's the only person on this planet who you can't kill - why are so you hellbent on tearing her into shreds? Is it some kind of bizarre love that even emotional screw-ups like me can't understand?"

Blue actually laughed - and the girl drew in breath. He almost never laughed. Not now. When he had been a child, once or twice she had heard that wild sound, but never since he became the monster he was.

Couldn't kill? What was this girl...something powerful, amazing?

"In the immortal words of Tina Turner, what's love got to do with it?"

"She's your soulmate!" Aspen nearly shouted. "Don't you understand how important that is? I don't know what I'd do without Tam-"

"Exactly what you've spent the last five years doing," he cut in. "You wouldn't be wasting your time trying to lead a vermin life."

"Tam is not vermin!"

She thought Aspen actually came close to attacking Blue, but he must have realised how incredibly stupid that would be. "I don't want to talk to you," the odd-eyed lamia boy said, still as afraid as he had been as a child, but somehow stronger for it. "I don't want to hear about you hurting Chatoya Irkil. I don't want any part in it."

"You have no part in it. This is between me and her."

Aspen stared at him. "I'm starting to wish you could kill her," he said shortly. "That would be easier than whatever you have planned."

"Yes..." Blue shrugged slightly, a languid careless motion. "Yes, it would. But where's the joy in that?"

Aspen only shook his head, and walked away. The flames swallowed him: he faded into fire.

Interesting. But why were they being watched? And just who was the boy watching them?

He stood before the fire, a thoughtful, narrow-eyed look upon his face, unaffected by the stifling heat. Not vermin, she was sure now, but what? She had never heard of a power like this that seemed part-witchcraft, yet infinitely more powerful.

Not even dragons had this kind of power, though she had thought at first that was what he was.

The boy clapped his hands twice and the flames vanished. Nothing remained but darkness.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya flew down the stairs, searching blindly for her friends. She felt like a dream, ghosting through this all too real world. A dream, with no control, a thing that was only what other people made her.

She found them eventually, deep in discussion, though it didn't seem as casual and friendly as usual. Jepar had a stunned look on his face, his green eyes unnaturally bright in the dim room, while Tali seemed purely furious.

As she approached, the three of them spun round.

"Have you gone mad?" were the first words from Lisa's lips, blazing like a Fury in her bright yellow dress. "What are you doing?"

"W-what?" she said, startled at the anger in her housemate's voice.

"Blue Malefici!" said Tali pointedly, her arms folded. "Have you forgotten that quickly?"

Oh god. They had seen. Chatoya tried to gather her scattered wisps of thoughts, and suddenly the world didn't seem like a dream anymore, but all too real.

"What about him?" she said guardedly.

Jepar's candid stare was harder to meet. He knew her like no one did, and there was bemusement glittering in the core of his gaze. "Lisa and Tali said you were..." A shrug, clearly uncomfortable.

"Playing tonsil tennis." Tali's voice a flat snap. "And it looked like a pretty even match."

Lisa put a calming hand on the dragon's arm, but it did nothing to diminish her concerned expression. "Why were you and he..." Great. She couldn't say it either. "Did he make you?"

He made me want him, Chatoya felt like saying, but the notion made her flush. Had she really? Was she so dreadfully shallow and vapid that she could forget all he was and worse, all he represented?

And she was so, so tempted to lie. It would have been easy to lie, and to blame Blue...but that would have made her like him, twisting the truth to her own ends. So she faced them squarely, despite the flutter in her stomach, and the small knot forming in her throat and told them, "No."

Jepar's blinked, dazed, his pupils vast and lost. She heard Lisa's sharp intake of breath, and only Tali remained unmoved, still cool if exasperated.

"You're being stupid." No compassion in the dragon. "Take it from someone who knows, people like him don't deserve to live."

An image flashed into her head, a boy crucified and silent, locked into his own glacial mind because it was the only sanctuary he had from his own family. Whoever that boy was now, what he had suffered was no less awful.

"Don't be so blind," she said angrily, feeling a gulf widening between them, and powerless to prevent it.

"Are you standing up for him?" a disbelieving Jepar asked. He raked his hands through his hair. "Toya, you know what he's like!"

"Yes, maybe more than any of you. I'm not justifying anything he's done. You think I don't know what he is?" she protested, then stopped. "Why is it such a big deal? I kissed the guy - it was nothing. It was a mistake, a whim, whatever."

"It was Blue," Lisa said, her voice curiously dead. "Have you forgotten Sonj that quickly? Don't you r-remember what he d-did?"

Chatoya was shocked to see tears standing in her eyes.

The made vampire cuffed at her eyes irritably. "Don't you remember what he did to your family?" she said.

"Don't throw that at me!" she bit back before she could stop herself. "Goddess, I don't want to talk about this."

"Well, you're going to have to," Tali declared. Despite the hot-red of her clothes, she had never seemed so cold to Chatoya. Why wouldn't they leave it alone? She didn't even know what she thought or felt, how could she possibly explain it to them?

"It is not your business." She took a deep breath to try and calm herself.

Jepar shook his head, gently, but it did nothing to dull the troubled edge to his words. "It is our business, because you are. We're your friends, Toya, and we can't just watch you jump off a cliff."

"Funny," she said in a strained voice that didn't seem to be hers, as the words themselves didn't, "I thought that was exactly what Tali did when you two first met."

The dragon froze, and Jepar's emerald eyes filled up with anguish that seeped into the air and hung there.

I didn't mean it, she wanted to say, I just need to you to let me deal with this. And she opened her mouth to take back those words, but Tali simply stalked off before she could.

Jepar didn't meet her eyes. "You'd better let her cool down," he warned. "Toya...I know you didn't mean it." His smile wavered, and vanished. The hurt in his face was like a knife to her heart. "I have to go and fulfil my duty as official punching bag."

"Jepar..." she whispered, apologies stuck behind the lump in her throat. How could she have said that?

He brushed by her, his voice rough. "I know. We'll hug it out later."

Just like that, he was gone, leaving behind only her and regret. She turned to Lisa, trying to find the right words.

The vampire shook her head, arms wrapped around herself. "Don't talk to me," Lisa said abruptly. "I'm going home. I just..."

Tears dissolved her voice: she tried to hide it, wiping at her eyes and half-covering her face with her hands. Chatoya had never seen Lisa run from anything, but she ran then, cannoning through the crowds.

She wanted to follow her friend, but she had the feeling she was going to end up in tears too. Lisa hit a tall figure who stopped her - Cougar, looking bemused more than anything as she pushed past him.

And Chatoya was left standing, shocked.

He strode over, looking lean and divine in simple black.

"What's going on?" the vampire said, frowning at her. "I just saw Tali and Jep leave, and Lisa's gone to find Thom so she can get a lift home...why were they all so upset?"

This was Cougar, Cougar who had told her in his shy, gauche and rare way that they were the deepest kind of friend. A friendship soaked in tears and baked in laughter, enduring as stone and adaptable as water. She took a deep breath. He would be angry, but she had seen him angry before

Just not at me, a voice said, but she pushed it aside resolutely.

"I kissed Blue," she said. "Voluntarily."

He reeled.

The sun went supernova in his eyes.

"You bitch," he said in an awful, quiet voice that stunned her to her core. "Oh god, you bitch, how could you?"

The golden light dripped from his eyes, tiny threads of fire moving down his face like the tears of a god, and if she hadn't been so utterly staggered, Chatoya might have seen the vulnerability in his shivering lips, or the horror impaled in his eyes.

As it was, all she saw was the way he stepped back, one hand rising in a warding-off gesture.

"Don't you realise what he is?" he whispered in the same dead and dreadful tone. "He's everything that's wrong in the world, he's not human, he's not right, he's nothing but evil."

She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a single chop of his hand.

"Was it the soulmate link?" he asked, and she heard the need behind that question. Hope fluttered in his face like a white flag, whipped by the storm.

Tell me it was the soulmate link.

She hesitated. That was all it took. One blink, one breath, one beat - and that flag was ashes, bitter ashes.

"Cougar-" she managed instead, her words almost stolen by the sheer intensity of his reaction. She hadn't realised he hated Blue so much - she hadn't known any of them did. "It was-"

"Rather fun," a smooth, satisfied voice said, and she felt an arm snake around her waist, and a warmth at her back. Her heart burst into furious shards - no, how could he use her like this!

Cougar was frozen, not her snarling angry angel, but a shattered boy with eyes like a dying sun that said nothing, nothing could ever forgive such a betrayal.

_Doesn't he look destroyed?_ Blue inquired, amusement thick as melted chocolate. _Oh, witch of mine, you seem to have touched my brother's heart somewhat._

Right now, her hatred of Blue ran like a lode of diamond, deep through her and ageless. She wrenched his hand off in the most painful way she knew, and tried to break at least one finger.

She lifted her eyes to Cougar, praying, hoping beyond hope that he would see...

He shook his head furiously. "Not this," was all he said and for the second time, he ran from her.

But this time, Chatoya followed.

_Here it comes again  
You raise the bar even higher  
I cannot catch my breath  
So throw the beauty on the fire..._


	13. Chapter Twelve

Hello again - as promised, prompter posting :-) Thank you to all the wondrous stars of you who reviewed last time round; it was muchly loved and adored. Thank you:

**Rain, Night Goddess, Mandy, Dianna, Leopardess, Eleyne, Meg, Ch'i-lin, Magelet, Kendal, Labhaise, Water Soul, Piper Rose **and finally, the fabulous **Queen Kat**.

Thank you to the fabulous Diomede for the lyrics; they are from Ani di Franco's 'I'm No Heroine' (Album: Imperfectly), which I am now trying to lay my grubby hands on but cannot find in the shops. Grr.

Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Twelve**

_I'm no heroine,  
At least, not last time I checked._

He didn't run for long.

Chatoya had known he wouldn't, because to Cougar, running was fear, was weakness, was that one human urge he could never quite surrender to, bar the long flight that had brought him here.

Just far enough to get away from the crowds, into the neat gardens that ran around the hall. They were hung with scarlet and russet at this time of year, a hundred fireworks frozen mid-explosion. She moved almost unseen through the smoky shadows, further from the babble, further from the crush, further from all that was human.

And he was waiting, sat on a stone bench with his long legs crossed at the ankles in an attempt at nonchalance and his arms folded. Absolutely still, but she knew it was the slight and cataclysmic hush before an avalanche fell.

The stars and arching moon of moments ago were lost, a curtain of clouds veiling them; his eyes, the smouldering gold of a tiger's eyes catching the sun, were all the light the night could offer.

Her feet slowed, and she paused before him and for a moment they could have been a tapestry, mere fibres, but yarn could never ache and twist like this. He, cut from the cloth of the night and now shrouded in it, clinging to the safety of certainty, the safety of concealing darkness. And she, cut from the same cloth but woven with new and strange threads that had transformed her into something she wasn't sure she understood or even liked.

"It's not like you to run," she began quietly, cat-careful. "But you've done it twice now."

"Have I?" His voice like raw silk, agonisingly bare, as though he had stripped himself of all feeling. "At least I have reasons for my actions."

The barb went home, like the spear into Achilles' foot. "You think I don't?"

"Go on," he snapped. "Explain it to me. Please, tell me how fraternising-" the irony on that word was so honed it made her wince "-with him can in any way be construed as a good thing!"

"No," she said, and that threw him; his eyes sizzled as though a bolt of lightning ran through them.

"What?"

Chatoya glared at him. A light rain was falling, nothing more than a cooling multitude of touches on her skin, but it did little to chill her rapidly rising temper. "I don't have to explain myself to you any more than I do to him. I won't be ordered about by you - any of you - Cougar."

A deep breath and he stood up, supple as a cat. She had forgotten how tall he was, how in this shadowy world he melted into the dark until she could glimpse only a flicker of gold, navy highlights on black hair, the sculpted lines of his face, frightening flashes that combined to create something altogether more menacing than the boy she knew.

His voice was very level, so even she knew it must be costing him immensely to stay calm. "I would like to know why you...did what you did. Please."

The rain was slackening now, leaving only a lingering freshness on the air and a cooling damp on her dress. The moon flitted out from a cloud and its cold light struck them both, casting him in ivory inhumanity, dragging him from the security of the dark.

He hid his expression almost at once, but the image of his anguished eyes burned itself onto her mind. She had never known his hate for Blue hurt him so much. But then, she had never thought about it - what it must mean to detest your own family, to hate someone who was flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood, bone of your bone.

She cleared her throat. "I...don't know exactly," she answered carefully, picking her words as though she stepped through a minefield. "It was completely spur of the moment. We were arguing and I told him to go away. I thought he had, and I was..." It sounded stupid. "Lost in the night," she muttered.

"Is that a euphemism?" Cougar said suspiciously.

"Goddess, no!" Goddess, please give me the words to get me out of this mess. "I was just counting stars, I don't know why, and...he kissed me."

"And you let him." Nothing readable in his face, except for the intensity of his eyes that he could never hide, magnificent and violent against his pale skin. "You didn't put up a fight."

It sounded like a statement, but it was really a question.

More and more her own actions seemed incredibly stupid. Blue, Blue Malefici in whose blood slaughter swarmed, who was nothing but a mystery wrapped in a riddle where the wrong answer meant only death, who was everything that should never have been, Blue had kissed her and she had surrendered like some swooning idiot.

"No," she murmured, feeling a shameful flush creep up her face.

His mouth curled in revulsion. "Not at all."

"Not at all," she confirmed, and found it very hard to meet his gaze that was growing more and more distant from her, as though she watched resin turn to amber in the space of seconds.

His breath hissed in sharply, and in queer empty tones he declared, "Well, I guess we know where you stand."

"And where's that?" she challenged recklessly, a useless anger swirling around her head. Directed at herself, directed at him, directed at Blue.

"With him." The word was spat out as though it tasted rancid in his mouth. "He'll kill you, Toya. Blue doesn't have feelings, he doesn't give a damn about you, or me, or anything except himself. You're nothing to him." The words were tumbling faster now, the rush and clatter of that avalanche crumbling onto her. "Can't you see that? Don't you care? Are you really that stupid that you think you're anything more than an easy l-"

Chatoya didn't slap him in the usual decorous way of many a film scene, because her life did not run according to a script but according to the deadly whims of others.

She punched him.

The silence that followed was even worse than the careless cruelty of his words, than her instinctive need to hurt him in a way that could not be achieved by mere speech.

"Oh Goddess," she said helplessly, moving forward at once to touch his face, filled with horror. For one free and uncaring moment, she had felt satisfaction that she could wound him like that, that she could block out those harsh words. "Oh, Cougar, I'm sorry..."

He jumped back with a snarl, and fangs glimmered like tiny daggers. She was horrified at his expression - so dreadfully defenceless in that moment, utterly disbelieving that she had done such a thing.

"You..." He raised a hand to cover his face, but she had already seen the beginnings of the swelling under the moonlight, turning a dark, angry red around his eye socket. "You hit me!"

They stared at each other, and Chatoya wanted to cry but suppressed the urge because tears wouldn't change what she had just done, only drown it. It was supposed to be a fun night, a night where they were themselves for once, with no worries and no need to be careful or guarded.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again, and tentative, unsure, walked to touch his wrist very delicately. This time, he didn't jump back, though she could tell he wanted to. "You just...when you said that..."

"You hit me," he repeated, stunned. "But you don't do that." His mouth twisted uncertainly, and he took her hand away, cradling it between his own, as though it were an alien and separate part of her. "You just don't."

One eye was watering and half-shut, evoking horrific guilt for that despicable reaction. One sharp word, and her reflex had been violence - what did that say about her?

"I didn't mean to," she protested. "Cougar, please don't look like that..."

He was breathing quickly, looking at her as though she was someone he had never seen before. One finger ran down the centre of her palm as if testing that it was her, and she struggled not to react.

"You're not who I thought," he said slowly, puzzlement, near panic running beneath his voice as he dropped her hand and looked her up and down, at her hair, rippling feyly in the wind and her bare arms, at the daring slash in the dress that clung like a siren's song. "Not at all."

Don't cry in front of him, don't, she thought, biting her lip until it blocked out some of her emotion. You hurt him, you can't cry.

"Please-"

His fangs were fully bared, needle fine as he skinned back his lips and snarled at her like an Alsatian, not with anger but something more like wariness. "I think it's a good idea if you go away now," he warned very quietly. "I can't...be rational."

"You can," she urged, confused herself now. He wasn't angry, not truly, because when he lost his temper, it was not in this still and subtle way.

"Not when I'm thinking about what you taste like, I can't," he snapped out in clipped tones, and she understood.

It had been a week since he'd fed. From her. And because they were friends, neither of them really bothered much with the shields that wouldn't have blocked off their minds; she had known he wouldn't look at her secrets, and she returned the courtesy.

Blood wove strong bonds.

A week, and she had hit him; and any vampire's reaction to being hurt was to bite. Hunger and anger and closeness, a fatal combination for a lamia.

She felt somewhat stupid. "Oh."

"No, B rhesus negative, unless I'm much mistaken," he answered. His voice was changing slightly, deepening a little and becoming slurred. "Go away. Now."

"But-"

His eyes burst into life with a vibrancy that shocked her. "Now! Get out! I need to find someone else to feed on, someone I'm not going to hurt. I can't control what I feel right now, Toya, so just go." The last word was a growl and as he moved towards her, she realised he was stalking her, like any predator might. "Go."

She obeyed, terrified by the danger she heard in his voice.

When she got back to the hall, she realised there was no one she wanted to see in there. Her friends were gone; her ride home was gone, but her house was only a twenty minute walk back by the woods and through the suburbs - and it wasn't a hunt night.

And if she could handle Blue, she could handle anything else Ryars Valley had to throw at her.

She could.

X - X - X - X - X

Her artful little face glared up at him. "Where the hell have you been?"

Blue shrugged, moving around her. "Here and there."

Jacqueline Trehet had the hardest eyes he had ever seen, not cold or bleak, but simply hard. He knew what had made them that way, and remembered her as a molten-eyed Monaco teenager, purring promises in his ears, never suspecting she left her soul open to be pried into and used against her.

Now, sleekly lovely, her accent gone, she was always smouldering with an undefined and chilly rage, but tempered by her intelligence. This version was far more useful.

Whether it was better didn't bother him.

She was a good foil to Aspen's irrationality and dreaminess, and Blue was sure that she and Chatoya would get on like a house on fire. After all, he'd been in many a burning building and the general chaos, confusion and collapse were very similar.

"Mostly there, obviously," she snapped, "since I haven't seen you for a good hour or so. And Aspen was associating far too closely with some vermin creature. He seemed," and her green-speckled gaze flicked to him slyly "close to her."

"She's what you might call bed and breakfast," Blue said mildly. "Nothing more."

"Pity." Jacqueline rolled her eyes, obviously disappointed. Her hatred of Aspen was entertaining, but becoming very counterproductive. "He said you'd booked me into a hotel. It had better be a hotel, not some cheap hostel."

"I have spared no expense," he said dryly, and honestly.

"Five star?" She smoothed her skirt over her legs, pausing to run her finger along the scar he had given her. "Still stings in the cold, you know."

He lifted one shoulder lazily. "You should have known better."

"I should have known you. But I didn't believe the rumours about you, not even when I saw you terminate the poisons master with his own concoction." She chuckled dryly. "Physician, heal thyself...I should have known the moment you said that."

"Why didn't you?" he asked casually. "You're no fool, Jacqueline Trehet."

"I was never sure," she answered, and it was intriguing to watch her examining objectively that emotional girl's passions with a world-weary woman's eye. "None of us were, but I was the only one stupid enough to take Telerana up on the bet. I didn't think you'd hear me - I didn't even breathe."

He had always liked her refreshing audacity. When she wasn't angry, Jacqueline was pleasant company. "Do you really think I didn't know there was a running competition as to who could make me bleed first?"

"Who did in the end?" she asked.

He gave her a bland, cold look. Draw blood? They could slice his skin, and see scarlet liquid fall, but drawing blood implied defeat, implied conquest. If that was drawing blood, then his blood was acid that would eat away any weapon. Yes, perhaps it would consume him too, devouring him from the inside out, but it was a destruction of his choice.

"Who cares?" he said casually.

She pulled at her hair with deft hands, rearranging so it framed her face in curving claws. "Oh, by all the gods!" Clearly annoyed, he noticed, still so easy to bait. "Are we ever going to leave this revolting vermin nest?"

"Indeed," he said, and strolled over to his car. "My business here is done."

A tight smile, accompanied by a flash of triumph from her mind. Plotting again, oh, Jacqueline was so unbearably keen with all her schemes and plans, all her pitiful attempts at subterfuge and cunning.

For a woman who had been so disturbed by Chatoya Irkil, she was curiously smug.

However, invading her mind would have to wait until she was sufficiently distracted, which would involve dropping some tantalising piece of information that would fascinate her, yet would offer her no kind of power over him or anyone else.

"So is mine," she positively purred, and then stopped dead. "What is that?"

He followed her pointing, slightly trembling finger.

It wasn't easy to confine his mirth at the sight of her enraged, aghast face, but Blue managed. "My car."

"That is not a car," she hissed, glaring at the sea-green Fiat that was slowly turning an interesting shade of rust. Dents littered it from various run-ins, and the hubcaps didn't match. It was probably something from her worst nightmare. "That is a metal cage of death on wheels."

"Yes, a car," he murmured, and gave it a slap that made rust flake onto the ground. "A very reliable one. It's lasted eighteen years, same as me."

"Eighteen?" she queried, honing in on the relevant point. Sharp: here was where Jacqui was strongest, with detail. "When did you turn eighteen?"

He unlocked the car, and had to wrench at the door slightly to open it. Too many collisions had near jammed it shut. "About two hours ago," he said thoughtfully.

She gave him a startled glance and reluctantly, wrinkling her nose every inch of the way, got into the car. "No presents, no letters?"

"I don't tend to open my mail," Blue remarked. "People have this bizarre habit of putting high explosives in them. Although I did get a rather interesting gift from someone, even if it arrived a little early."

"Hmm." The vampire clung onto her seatbelt and the door desperately as he backed the car out. For a while, there was silence between them as he drove down the roads, noticing idly how she clung onto the door every time he took a bend, and had her eyes shut whenever they approached a set of traffic lights, and the car screeched to a halt with a faint rattle.

They were nearly back in the centre of town before she dared to speak. "Does this thing have air-conditioning?"

"Of course," Blue answered and opened the window. "Better?"

Jacqueline's lips tightened. "Must you always be so contrary?"

"Yes," he drawled, "and no."

Obviously the joke didn't settle too well with her, and as her mind smouldered with resentment, and her attention slipped inwards, he let his thoughts flick into her mind with the ease of a dolphin cutting through stormy water.

In an instant, a disturbing second, a conversation wheeled through his mind. A flash of those hungry, burning eyes as she had seen them, of pale intent faces fixed with a kind of fanaticism at her words.

_I want her dead. You understand me? She's a witch, she's jumped-up vermin and I want her in shreds by the morning. I don't care how you do it, just make sure it is done-_

Her mind stirred, almost aware that he was there...

Blue split their thoughts like a climber throwing free a grappling iron, and returned his attention to the road in time to skid to a halt several feet past the hotel sign.

"Nice to see you still dice with death," Jacqueline remarked with tight lips. "I will never understand how you managed to get a licence."

"I tortured the instructor."

Let her look horrified briefly, let the brainless, scheming vixen remember what he was. He settled his eyes on hers steadily, her fear pulling at his dragon senses like the scent of bread to a famished man. Finally, with an uneasy flicker of her dark eyes, she turned on one Prada-clad heel and strode away with her small and slamming steps.

As soon as she was inside the golden light of the crucifyingly expensive hotel, Blue spun the car around and slammed the accelerator to the floor.

He hadn't thought Jacqueline would act so quickly.

The world blurred into dark buildings and streetlights as he shot by. Wolves, wolves and he didn't even know where that wretched witch was. If she was fool enough to get herself ripped apart, it would ruin his plans.

And though he detested it, he did the only thing he could and reached for the gleaming fiery connection that was lodged in the back of his head, only half his mind concentrated on driving now, the rest searching like a hovering hawk-

There.

X - X - X - X - X

The moon trailed above her like a pale finger beckoning as she folded her arms against the cold. The chill breeze read winter's first greeting to her and plucked at her hair. Her feet ached dreadfully in the high shoes that were made for dancing, not hiking.

Chatoya stumbled, and swore. The darkness seemed to swallow her words, and threw only strange noises at her; odd, low whistles, a distant whispering. Maybe she should have been afraid, but the night here was never tranquil and never hushed. Ryars Valley murmured even in slumber.

Resentment and guilt burned beneath her ribs, a heartburn with no heart. All she could see was her friends' faces, floating before her like cast-off blossom; Alisha's hard stare, Lisa's tears, Jepar's shock and worse, last and worse, Cougar's disbelieving and exposed eyes.

And Blue, yes, he haunted her too, behind all of them, so malicious and aloof. Cut from ice, oh, truly, but so beautifully made. If he was ice, then his mouth had been the silky glide of melting frost, and his touch had been snowflakes to her skin. She, fool, idiot, had been ensnared by him.

Never again, she swore. All he wants is to hurt me. Every word is a lie or a weapon, and sometimes both.

Never again.

If she hadn't been so preoccupied, a movement might have caught her eye, and caused her to freeze. She would have seen that flash in the gloom, and known it as an all too familiar colour from Cern Akafren's description, a hard and eerie green, the green of a wolf's eye.

She might have thought: but it isn't a hunt night. The Pack don't care about me, they don't hunt people, not after the dire error they made with Jallakri ap Ganra...

And as that flash came again, a predator's wink, her mind might have whispered: oh no, no, no.

But she missed that treacherous glimmer, and she didn't think those saving thoughts, and as her heel jammed in a hole, she was thrown forward, onto her knees-

The pain hit her like a dozen spears lancing into her back.

She screamed, a thin pathetic sound that was cut off by the impact of the ground. Her hands scraped over the pebbles, losing purchase as she sprawled onto her side on the gravel. A new, vicious pain knifed her shoulder - teeth, savage, red-hot.

She tried to turn and fight off these awful things, driven by blind instinct. Her elbow connected with something furry and heavy, something warm like only a living beast could be: for the first time dual emerald flashes registered on her senses, then she was shaken, terrier-style, by the werewolf biting her shoulder.

Chatoya was aware that she was screaming and screaming but somehow that didn't matter, none of this would matter if she couldn't get free and run, run, run-

The first wolf let go of her: the moment of respite was brief. She hardly felt the burn of icy air in he throat before the other wolf sprang at her, its claws slashing deep into her shoulders and slamming her onto the ground, back flat to the floor. At the same time, she seemed to hear a tremendous crash that must have been her head cracking on the hard ground.

In the dim light, Chatoya experienced only horrible fragments; the stinging of her arms and hands, the rancid reek of its breath mingled with the coolness of the air, the weight of its hot feet upon her chest and stomach. No air could enter her lungs, and she was suffocating; not a single spell would spring to her mind...

Incredible pain like acid drops hurled on her leg, and she couldn't even scream or move to shake the other wolf off.

Above her, the green gleam disappeared as the wolf's jaws yawned wide, so wide that they seemed to envelop her vision until her world was that maw, her world was one swift snap-

A blur hit it, a slinky shadowy mass, and she could gasp in great lungfuls of air, her eyes unable to focus on anything, her mind unable to grasp anything but pain and horror. The second wolf was still gnawing her leg, its snarls muffled and ferocious.

Fight! she told herself. It's just shock, you're a healer, you know that. Something, someone has saved you, maybe it's Cern, don't just let it go.

The spell came back to her then, the first spell every witch learnt and she sat up blindly, groping until her hand brushed the tips of its ears and then she grabbed its fur and twisted-

Raw magic blasted into it.

The creature screamed and screamed and writhed under her hands, its fur shrinking - and then it was a man's voice, and a man's hair under her touch, rocking on his heels, high and helpless. It cut out as he slumped backwards.

Dead? Unconscious? She didn't care, she didn't. However much she stared at it, it didn't seem real. Nothing seemed real tonight, it was all a chimera of someone else.

Chatoya stretched her arms in front of her slowly, trembling. Blood lay in shiny black trails on her skin, cuts stinging and throbbing, unfixable rips in her beautiful dress and suddenly she was cold, so cold that she couldn't stop shaking. The huge, uncontrollable shudders threatened to shake her apart from the inside.

Then a question inserted itself into her mind, slowly, as though it walked along a frayed rope bridge.

Who had rescued her?

Her head seemed to lift jerkily of its own accord, and for a moment, the scene made no sense. Soundless, except for her chattering teeth, vision jolting because she shook so.

Someone had driven a car into a tree, skid-marks trailing up to the grass-covered wheels. And beneath one side of the car, glass smattering its fur and twinkling brightly, lay the other wolf, jaws still wide but slack and harmless. Thrown with massive force.

That same someone was examining the broken window, running a finger over the jagged shards remaining. Shadows concealed them, reducing them to a dark outline.

A small, rational part of her knew she ought to be getting up and thanking them, but her body wouldn't obey, and the rest of her mind was a blind and quivering fog. She could only shake, and feel the cold stabbing at her.

Then the figure turned round and it seemed as if she had known who it was all along.

"You wretched little fool," he said derisively, and the gold of his eyes shocked her, because in the murk, he might have been Cougar Redfern. "Well, get up."

All she could do was stare blankly. He seemed to be blurring, the world was blurring and then hot liquid ran down her cheeks and nose to drip onto her thighs.

"Pack it in." His voice was a snap. "I don't have time for you to start an ocean here. Get up. I won't help you."

The trembling increased until it took her over and knocked away all other thought.

"I'm not here to play white knight." An image of him, impossibly alluring in her dream, Blue as he should have been, and would never be. "If you want to survive among us, you can't expect help. No one will help you when it gets worst of all, and I'm no exception."

How dreadful those words were, all the worse because she knew them to be true.

"Now, Chatoya Irkil."

The sound of her name cut through the horror. Yes, she was Chatoya Irkil, and he was Blue Malefici and she would not - could not - be weak in front of him. Leave weakness for later, when he could not inspect and examine it to see best how he might use it.

At last her body replied, and she tottered to her feet. She scrubbed at her face until her vision cleared, and tried to take deep breaths of the icy air.

"Better," he remarked. He hadn't moved, only stood watching her. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

Somewhere...home, but she had no key, and Lisa would be there, and maybe Tali and Jepar too, waiting for her. Maybe they would try and talk to her, and tell her how wrong she was and how stupid she had been. Tell her those things she already knew.

But who, a treacherous voice whispered, heard you calling for help?

"No," she said dully. "Nowhere."

"Well, you can't sleep in the road." A flicker of his eyes, changing but not dimming; they were a crystal blue that sparkled like sunlight hitting the bluest ocean.

"Can't I?" she asked. Nothing seemed real, nothing was right. Look at her life, scattered in pieces around her, look at her now. She couldn't think.

"No." Reflection on that distant face, as though he was considering something. "Come here," he ordered. "And don't fall over, because I'm not going to sit here while you weep and wail."

She obeyed without question. Her mind seemed drained, emptied by the night. There was no will left in her at all. There was nothing to resist with.

"Get in." The orders continued. Shut the door. Put on a seatbelt. She moved through it all automatically, pain eating at the edges of her mind, still frozen, cold beyond belief. She was dimly aware of him starting the engine and backing his crumpled car out, of a wing-mirror dropping off and a slight thump as he ran something over - repeatedly - and then a long and hazy journey somewhere.

Undo the seatbelt. Open the door. Get out. Wait.

In a place of warm light, orange-hued light, being guided with an uncaring hand that pushed her through doorways and past furniture, sitting down on something and for the first time, out of that awful darkness.

Simply being somewhere bright reached through the miasma around her and she blinked, feeling as though she awoke. Through a door ahead, she glimpsed a bed, half-made, and a painting that seemed somehow familiar...

The marks on her arms stood out clearly now, ghastly red-rimmed wounds that were beginning to hurt like nothing she had ever felt. And her dress - dear god, it was almost destroyed. A few scraps clung to preserve her modesty, but half the skirt was simply gone, a few threads tickling her leg, and the front had definitely lost some cloth along the way.

Material hit her in the face and she groped blindly at it, panicking for a moment-

"Bathroom to your left," Blue said flatly as she separated the pile to find clothes and a sleeping bag.

He was standing in the doorway, watching though as though something perplexed him, though there was nothing that showed that in his expression: only a feeling she had. There was a smear of blood on the inside of his wrist, and another under his eyebrow. "Those should fit. You can sleep on the sofa," he added. "I refuse to forfeit my bed because you decided to indulge your folly."

There was utter lack of interest in his voice, no concern at the sight of her. His calmness even made her feel guilty. But she said nothing about it - she simply hadn't the energy to form words. Chatoya slunk into the bathroom and threw on the oversize black T-shirt and loose navy running shorts he threw to her before trying to delicately wash her arms.

The light in the lounge was out when she went back in, and for a moment, she paused, and thought she saw shadows lurking there, there in the dark-

Nothing, she told herself, but scuttled across the room anyway, and curled onto the couch. His door was shut, barred. In the lair of the lion, and the awful irony was that it was the safest place she could be.

It was the only place.

But it was not as safe as she thought.

_I'm too easy to roll over.  
I'm too easy to wreck._


	14. Chapter Thirteen

Thank you to all the fabulous, and fabulously patient wonders of you who reviewed last time round - I know I'm not the promptest poster ever. Thanks to:

**Danel, Night Goddess, Amber, Mandy, Domz, Midnight Haze, Queen Kat, Stacy, Meg, Magelet, Eleyne, Leopardess, Kendal, Pyro Angel, Lotty **and the ever-wonderful **Me**.

The lyrics for this part come from the exquisite _Iris_ by the Goo Goo Dolls (Album: Dizzy Up The Girl).

**Chimera Part Thirteen  
**  
_And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
Or the moment of truth in your lies.  
When everything feels like the movies, yeah,  
You bleed just to know you're alive._

The dream burst onto her like being thrown forwards into a photograph; everything was sharply cut, every line seemed to be a weapon and every shadow a pit.

Her feet ached more dreadfully than before, and this time, there were no fevered thoughts of the night, but a roiling fear that began as a knot and expanded outward from her stomach, curling through her veins.

Flash.

Green light, flickering in her vision.

But I know what's going to happen, a voice stammered, I can stop it, I must be able to stop it-

But however her mind raged, her body moved in the same motions as before, yet this time her eyes saw wolves pounce. Searing pain exploded across her skin and she was on her back again beneath the wolf, with its jaws open and slavering. Her one wild thought was; Blue, this is where Blue will arrive-

How odd that her knight should be her blight.

But this time, no, this treacherous time, he didn't. She was powerless as the jaws closed about her throat and tore-

She woke from the nightmare with a half-stifled cry, and found herself in a strangely dark room, her mind cowering and befuddled. Blue's house, she told herself, Blue's house, they wouldn't come here.

Something moved in the corner of her eye - was that a flash of green? Oh no, please no. She huddled deeper under the blanket, drawing her knees up to her stomach and prayed it was her imagination-

It had moved again, it wasn't...

Her mind was screaming now. Like a child, she peeked out from her fingers, paralysed by dread. And a curious anger began in her, anger at herself for being so stupid. Logic told her nothing was here; instinct whispered something might be.

The thump of a door; bright light dazzled her. Logic flooded back with the light.

"You are keeping me awake," Blue informed her flatly, from where he was standing in a pair of black shorts and a narrow-eyed glare. One arm leaned along the doorframe, and his head rested in the crook of that arm, bright cobalt against stark white. The gentle light softened his face and bent in golden lines on the flat planes of his torso, twisting into curves around that long scar. "If you must have a panic attack, make it the silent and deadly kind."

She gaped at him, and though her voice shook, she couldn't tell if it was fear or anger. "You insensitive..."

"Oh, utterly," he agreed, and smothered a yawn with the back of his hand. "I can assure you, there are no wolves in here."

Part of her knew that. But the other part remembered the feel of those teeth, and the blunt sting of those claws. And there were so many ways into this room, doors and windows, and-

_Would you be quiet?_ he demanded, and his telepathic voice was as shocking as a firecracker going off. His eyes were half-open, showing only a smudged navy gleam through his lashes, but she had the feeling he was still watching her and still alert.

"You try," she flung at him, hating her tremulous voice. "Why don't you pretend you're not invincible and invulnerable - why don't you pretend someone's nailed you up to that wall again and this time Cougar won't come and cut you down!"

His mouth curled, and she thought for an awful moment that she had hit his one weakness. "Oh please," he said instead. "Don't tell me that stung your pity! Don't you have any comprehension of who I am, Chatoya Irkil? Don't you know better yet?"

"Children are children," she said stubbornly. "No one should have done that to you."

"And you're still a child if you honestly believe that, still stuck in those ridiculous ideas of good and evil. I told you already, the world will eat you alive if you don't watch out, and it won't stop to ask whether you've been naughty or nice."

She couldn't help but look at her cuts and bruises. "I know," she said. "And if you think I'm still a child, then you don't know me either."

"Perhaps," was all his answer.

There was a long silence, but oddly, it wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't comfortable either, but somewhere between, a silence that needed filling only to take away the memories that hung upon the air like ghosts. Eventually, she rubbed at her tired eyes. How strange that he had washed away her fear, replacing it with that fierce and angry focus she always needed dealing with him.

And then he said coolly, "If it will make the proverbial cat leap upon your tongue, and I'm not referring to that moronic shapeshifter friend of yours, you may sleep in my room."

"With you?" she squeaked, all thoughts of wolves driven out of her head. "I wouldn't even-"

A withering sigh. "You may have looked less uninviting than usual tonight, but really, do you honestly think I feel an urge to merge? Open wounds are not an aphrodisiac, even for me." He yawned, and straightened. "And witch of mine, you certainly need the beauty sleep. Anyone looking at you would think you'd had a chronic case of insomnia for the last eighteen years."

She eyed him suspiciously, discarding the insult that she barely felt, so long accustomed to his smooth swift spite. "You won't come in."

The corners of his mouth turned up slowly. His voice positively sizzled. "Only on invitation."

"I wouldn't invite you in if a horde of cannibals were waiting for me," she muttered bluntly. "Besides, you find me desperately unattractive, remember?"

One brow inched up slowly. "Did I say that? I think not. You're not at all pretty, witch of mine, but that doesn't stop you being attractive." His chuckle rolled across her ears, and made a tingle spiral out from her spine. "You certainly have the magic touch."

"I what?"

No, shouldn't have asked, she thought. He's dangerous when he's like this. I can cope when he's cruel, and I can handle him being cold, but when he's playing...

"Though maybe you should learn to apply it to yourself," he mused, the first sign that he had even noticed her injuries. "Speaking from experience, you look like someone's tortured you with a cheese-grater."

She didn't say anything. Her magic was gone, emptied into that wolf, but no way was Chatoya going to let him know she had one less thing to fight him with.

But somehow, beneath his steady and severe observation - she knew he knew

"I'll...try and get some sleep," she muttered.

Chatoya stood up, gasping as her ankle threatened to buckle and her cuts stretched with the flexing of her muscles. How stupid, how utterly stupid to feel secure when Blue was in a room. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, she wasn't sure if she was burning or drowning.

As she hobbled past his bland, unconcerned stare, his hand snapped out and closed over the teeth-marks in her arms. She nearly choked trying not to react; the touch sent acid-burn heat up her arm, mingled with the feathery, intrusive sense of his thoughts, only half-awake but dipping into her mind as almost a reflex. Her fingers tried to prise his away, but Blue could have been iron for all the effect she had.

_It's nice to see you have no plans to kill me for once_, he remarked, and dug one nail into her cut until her eyes watered. _Keep it that way._

"You behave, I'll behave." She enunciated each word slowly. He always had the power to make her furious, to drive away all other emotion until there was only a helpless anger.

"Intriguing proposition." He stepped back, watching her with something between triumph and curiosity. "Stay angry, Chatoya Irkil. If you aren't afraid, we might both get some sleep."

As she shut the door with a pointed snap, confused by his words, he had already flicked the light off.

The bed was comfortable, at least, and still warm from the heat of his body. Moonlight came through the window above the bed, hugging her body like a silver sheet. There were no curtains, and she prayed that perhaps this small bit of light would keep away the nightmares as she settled, trying to find some way to lie that hurt as little as possible.

She pushed away the thought that moonlight was a wolf's religion.

Goddess protect me, she prayed as the sweet and welcome drowsiness crept over her. Keep away the memory. You're the only one who will.

X - X - X - X - X

The girl was a pathetic bundle at his feet. Her hair was dark but somehow, not dark enough. And her eyes were a pretty shade of periwinkle blue, but they had seemed too bright.

Still, her blood had packed a very welcome punch.

Cougar Redfern ran his tongue over his teeth, and stared at her pale face without any feeling except the sorrow that boiled under his skin. Her veins were a tracery of blue under her near-translucent skin. He shouldn't have drunk so much.

He couldn't have stopped if he had tried.

The thought would have stung normally, but with her blood clouding his thoughts into a scarlet miasma, he didn't care. Why stop? Why not give in? Who said what was wrong and right but, but vermin like these?

"Vermin," he snarled softly, and resisted the urge to kick the girl. Some part of him still felt uneasy about that. "Stupid goddamn vermin. Blue had it right."

"First time I've heard that in a while."

He froze. The voice cut through the fog like hail, the tone different, but the sounds themselves exactly the same. Still so ordinary, so uncommon. Only its kindness had made it warm and unique before, but that was long fled.

She stepped from the shadows like a leopard revealing its camouflage, and smiled.

Her hair was different, no longer rich and brown but a nondescript sandy colour, and her face was older, but the bone structure was the same, though without the vivacity she had always had, it dulled into insipidity. Yet looking at her, he saw between time, four years into his past.

Then, her skin had been puffy and bruised, her arm broken in two places, a body cradled in her lap, more human than she had ever been or ever would be again.

"Hello Cougar," she said simply, and her eyes were pits in the night, making her smile a mockery and her words a farce.

The knot in his throat hurt, and he swallowed, at last able to answer. "Sandrine?"

X - X - X - X - X

The dreadful darkness coiled in on her again, images of teeth flashing above and her absolute powerlessness as claws scraped along her skin, down to her heart-

She woke screaming in terror, eyes white in the ivory-shot light, arms threshing.

There was a figure above her, oh gods, they had come for her, they truly had, it was reaching down for her-

Cool fingertips brushed her forehead.

The contact sent sparks jolting along her body, driving her into another mind for a moment, the one she knew so well with its icy cold core, swathed in the fierce love of killing.

She fell back, staring up at a face she knew like her own as Blue moved into the moonlight.

"You don't have to scream," he commented serenely, winding a tendril of her hair around his finger. "If you want my presence that badly, heartfelt begging will do."

She thrust his arm away hard and again, was launched into his mind like being thrown into a lake in winter. Cracking ice, the dash of frozen water, the glazed sparkling splendour of it.

"That's better," he remarked, not even flinching. He turned to go, and she was struck by a sudden cold fear, fear of being left alone, knowing the wolves would return for her because she was their prey and they had marked her.

But she didn't say anything. She didn't let him know. What was the point? What would he care?

He had stopped still, head tilted to one side as if listening.

"Does this mean you're just going to wake up screaming again?" he said, the mesmerising voice mild. "I would like some sleep."

Chatoya froze. Stop him seeing my thoughts, she thought frantically. This isn't fair, isn't it enough that we both know I owe him?

But she was still shivering, still feeling the desperately quick patter of her heart against her chest, the clammy knot in her stomach.

"You can go," she told him, keeping her voice low so it wouldn't shake.

"You're lying." He turned back, eyes pinning her. "And you can't even do that well."

"Go," she said tiredly. "Sharing a bed with you is not my idea of a good time."

She saw his mouth quirk. "You know, that would have been painful if I cared in the slightest."

He strolled out, shutting the door behind him. She lay in the dark, eyes shut so she wouldn't see the shadows that seemed to swirl and flicker in the corners of her vision.

She fell back slowly into shadowy dreams, dreams that seemed to deepen and become more solid...

Chatoya looked down and saw she was walking down a rocky road, faltering in her high heels and long dress. No, she thought. No, not again!

But the loneliness and the chill of this empty night beat down on her as she slipped and stumbled down the path. She knew what would happen even as she felt her fear paralysing her, slowing her steps. For the wolves would be waiting for her in the shadows; there would always be wolves, waiting to tear her down.

She turned to go back, and they were there, glints of green in the moth-like wings of the gloom. She could smell the hot, meaty stink of their breaths and hear their rolling growls.

Backing away, she lurched as her heel sank into a hole, hands brushing the chill tickling air.

And they leapt-

As she was flung from the depths of the nightmare, her screams filled the air again, high and full-throated, tearing at the dark like the dream ripped at her, and she had her hands clutched to her face, unable to open her eyes and confront the horror she was sure would be there...

Warmth ringed her suddenly; her hands were prised from her face with a touch that was sure and subtle, and she collapsed into Blue because even he was better than the darkness, clinging to his shoulders.

"You're quite the flatterer tonight," his amused voice said. "I'm glad I rate above being ripped to shreds."

She pushed him away almost at once, unaware of how haunted her eyes were, how her fear shuddered in them. He didn't let her go.

"I'm staying," he informed her before she could open her mouth to tell him to go away. "I would like some sleep. If it was anyone else I'd knock you out, but that's going to knock me out as well and leave us both with the headache from near-hell tomorrow, the headache from hell being my older brother."

She stared at him. "No chance."

"Witch of mine," he said coolly, "you're shaking."

He was right, and she tried to get herself under control. "I-"

"-am fed up of being woken by you shrieking your head off," he cut in. "Three times is enough. You can at least be screaming in my presence."

"Arrogant bastard," she muttered.

"I'm a vampire. It goes with the territory."

She opened her mouth to argue but he just stared back with those unreadable, winter-filled eyes and she had to look away. She couldn't outstare the monstrosity there. No one mortal could.

"You don't try anything," she said, avoiding staring at his face. She was aware of how close they were, and it made her very uneasy.

"My dear, I don't try. I succeed," he purred softly, the malice edging every word. "However, in deference to your maidenly modesty and ability to give me some rather nasty scorch-marks when your power returns...you have my word I will lay nary a finger or a fang on you."

She didn't trust him an inch, but he had put those formidable mental spiked shields up again, and she had no choice but to take him at his word. Probably, she thought grimly, her nightmares would intensify now.

He yawned, and stretching lazily as a cat, lay down, pulling her down to his side. "If you keep me awake, unless it's in a very interesting way," he drawled, "I will personally deliver you to those yapping wolves."

"It's not something I have any control over," she snapped, aware of how very wrong this was. He was a warm mass along her side, lying on his back with one hand thrown carelessly behind his head, eyes shut, his eyelashes frosted by moonlight.

And silently, in the veiled and shrouded depths of her head where even her worst fears were coated with cobwebs and daubed with dust, she spoke the truth.

I am alone against a nightmare I cannot fight.

Yet this is no dream: only my life.

"I did gather that. Either that, or you've chosen an extremely inconvenient time to perfect your banshee impression." She froze as she felt a touch, impersonal and deft that pulled her closer to him.

"What are you doing?" she said, and could hear the first shrillness in her voice, like fingernails scraping over a blackboard.

"Offering comfort."

The answer was so extraordinary, and so obviously a blatant lie that she had no words for a moment.

"I don't want your comfort," she said proudly, but found she couldn't unravel herself from his grip that seemed to block her without applying any pressure, a cage made from gossamer. "Stop it!"

She was almost crying, and out of the fear rose shame, hotly red and opening like a thornéd flower in her chest.

"Hush," he said, and the gentleness surprised her as he shifted onto his side, and pulled her closer, making himself a shelter that she couldn't escape from. There was the fear, and there was Blue and she wasn't sure if they were one and the same. "Stop fighting for the sake of fighting. If I choose to hurt you, whether you are two inches away or two miles will make no difference."

His touch was no longer impersonal, but demanding something of her, but she didn't know what. Edging her closer until she was huddled in the warmth of his body.

Oh, you're so beautiful, she thought.

The moonlight seemed to caress his face, to have fallen under his spell as hopelessly as so many must have, and paint him with silver elegance. It cut the world into black and white, but there were only shadows between them.

You're so beautiful, but I know what you are.

"Why not this time?" she said bitterly, unmoving in this strange embrace. "Don't tell me the monster feels sympathy."

"The monster feels nothing," he answered, thrusting his face close to hers. Not merely close, but so close their lips touched, and his breath danced with ant's feet on her mouth. Beyond civility, and beyond arrogance and into that place where emotions were only hot coals that they braved and were burnt by. "The boy that became the monster remembers being hunted, and he remembers how the wolves' teeth hurt, and he remembers how much he wished for someone to comfort him. He learned otherwise in the end, but the monster still remembers him."

She was silenced.

You should kiss me now, she thought. That's how it works. You're supposed to be so angry that it melts and twists itself into passion.

"That boy had no one," he said abruptly, and drew back a little. "The monster will scare away the nightmares for a night, and be someone."

"I'm - sorry." She tried to look at his face, but couldn't. She wanted to see hurt, to see rage, to see anything but the stillness.

"I'm not," he said coolly. "The monster runs from no one."

"Maybe...there's just a tiny, remote, infinitesimal possibility that..." she wavered. "I was...wrong."

He lay back, staring at the ceiling with tranquil, empty eyes and she thought he would reject her, release her, but instead he simply pulled her to his side until her head lay on his shoulder and she was pressed up warm against him. She was all too aware of the weight of his arm, keeping her there.

"No," he murmured. Cast in silver by the distant moon, and outcast in hatred by his own blood. "You were right. I am a monster. Why do you think it's such a vile word? It's only terrible when you don't accept it."

"Why accept it?" she asked. She didn't dare look at his face, for fear of what she might - or might not - see, but closed her eyes.

Strange how when you took away one sense, the others became so much more potent.

"Why reject it? I don't care what anyone else thinks. They don't matter. They're nothing to me. They hardly exist."

"Then what matters to you?" she whispered, startled by this glimpse into his thoughts, this ray of light into an underwater cavern.

The answer was Blue. It said nothing at all, and yet clearly meant something she couldn't quite grasp.

"Sensation," he said. "I live to feel alive. That's all."

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but he put a finger to her lips.

Sensation...

The mouth was so incredibly sensitive, and the touch, despite its harmless nature, so profound, that she fell silent. It reminded her too much of that bloodkiss, that touch that had been yet more intimate and not at all harmless, and reminded her that words could be coated in sugar.

Some poisons were nectar in your throat. But your heart would cease to beat all the same.

"Sleep," he told her. And much to her surprise, she did.

_And I don't want the world to see me  
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.  
When everything's made to be broken  
I just want you to know who I am._


	15. Chapter Fourteen

Aloha, and sorry it took so long! I have been busier than a whole army of bees! Thank you to the fabulous angels of you who reviewed last time round - it was muchly, muchly appreciated and was a wonderful relaxant. Thank you;

**Danel, Stacy, Sienna Keyna, Eleyne, Pyro Angel, Izzy, Meg, Amber, Me, Sarah, Midnight Haze, Cliodhna, Lotty, Water Soul, Mandy, Stacy, Diomede, Queen Kat, Share, Dark Princess, Kendal, Dearest Delight, Baby Loca **and** Leopardess. **

Lyrics taken from _For The Restless _by Tom McRae (Album: All Maps Welcome).

**Chimera Part Fourteen**

_She comes to me in dreams  
A train-wrecked beauty queen  
But I don't remember her_

Iager brushed his fingers over the dirt, noting the imprint of feet and the bent reeds. A whisper of warmth still clung to the ground, carrying an scent that made his heart twist savagely. It had the sweet freshness of the ocean overlaid by a delicate breath of lilies.

It smelled just like her. If not for the tinge of humanity, he would have thought it so.

But the woman he thought of was long dead, leaving only bitter memories. Which meant, then, that another had stood here. Her small footprints and soft scent named her human and female.

Someone had been spying on him.

She had surely have seen him draw down fire. It had been a foolish risk, and he could only hope now that he would not pay for it.

Fireblade, they had called him once. Fire had been rooted in his soul. It had been his sword, his solution, his self.

He had been that rarest of creatures: more than mere dragon, possessed of ancient, awful power. There had been five of them, the last of their kind, who had stood and fallen in the Burning Times. He had been the oldest, the first, and he was the last.

Elementals, humans would name them. Pursangs, witches said, and the name had survived the ages, if the legend had not. Drax, they called themselves.

Earth, sky, fire, water, ether; and only fire remained, burning bright through the ages.

He, ruler of empires, was reduced to this; to watching this notorious and infamous Malefici creature scavenging the powers of his people. If he had been sent only to watch, it would have been intolerable.

"It's very simple," Tri had told him a brief week ago, drawing back the photograph as she had drawn back herself from him. Her arm had brushed him, and she had recoiled as though he were a leper. "We know Malefici has dragon powers. We also know he's planning something - and we need to know what."

"Any ideas how?" he had asked, leaning back on the hammock, and watching her lovely, cold face with regret. So close once, to be so far now. "From what I hear, he's what you might call invulnerable."

Her teeth gleamed in her triumphant smile. "Not entirely. He has a soulmate."

"So what?" he pointed out. "So do you. It doesn't mean anything."

A frown snuffed out her smile. If there was sudden pain in her eyes, he could understand it. "She's read his mind, you fool. Approach her. Ask her to help. She's a friend of the boss's fiancée, use that. Good leverage - from what I hear, she's not Malefici's biggest fan. He murdered her family, and tried the same trick on her."

"Then fifty thousand volts of electricity and an inexplicable pink tinge to everything?"

The vampire wrinkled her nose, making her eyes crease at the corners. So few laughter lines in six hundred years. "Hardly. Fifty thousand volts and a highly explicable punch in the jaw. But she's your girl. Name of Chatoya Irkil - but make sure she does loathe him, it's going to be unfortunate for us all if Malefici finds out."

"Of course," he had said shortly. "Give me some credit, Tri. I may not have your sky-high IQ, but I do have some sense."

"I'm sure," had been the distant answer, before she had strolled out of his life, as elegant and passionless as a statue. Sometimes, he wondered how he had ever thought he loved his ex-wife.

Now that plan seemed at risk. Malefici and Chatoya Irkil had been having close encounters of the lurid kind. He needed to find Chatoya again - after all, she had seemed to like him in his guise as Sean - and try to persuade her.

And, he thought, glancing at the flattened rushes, find his mysterious voyeur.

X - X - X - X - X

_Sandrine..._

He was hurled into the past as though he tumbled down an icy slope, out of control and out of time. He was back in that night of carnage, when Blue had become what he was, when Cougar had fled stricken from his own home.

"Wait!" she had shrieked, tears blurring her voice into a wail of despair. "No, wait, please, you can't, don't go-"

But he had already been running, running from his family who had appeared from the misty night like angels of death and seen precisely what Blue had wanted them to.

Carinna was dead, her throat wrenched half out with a strength that could be only that of a vampire. She was sprawled on the dirt like a discarded ragdoll, her eyes open and unseeing. Knelt in her blood, Sandrine wept, chest heaving as though her grief would tear her in two, nothing to them but vermin and prey. If they noticed her bruises, they didn't care.

All they saw was him. The prodigal son, with blood staining his hands and lips.

He remembered his mother's face; her cold mask fracturing in one heartrending instant. He had been her youngest son, her darling, because Blue was no child to her, only a mistake.

"Cougar..."

Her judge's face released the verdict in her blank, aghast expression and ashen skin. And then her eyes lit up – the eyes he had inherited, bright as a meteor streaking through the heavens, full of fire and rage.

"What have you done?" she cried, and the condemnation was raw in her voice. It didn't matter about the truth: only about Blue's carefully crafted lies, lies that named him a murderer.

She would have killed him. They all would.

So he had run, leaving Sandrine behind. He had lived, barely, and locked away all Blue had meant to do that night. Blue had failed, yet somehow succeeded beyond belief.

"May I sit here?"

The tranquillity of her voice brought him back, though he felt an inexplicable urge to take flight again, to run until there was neither breath nor feeling left to cause this hollow pain in his heart.

She stepped gracefully over the fallen girl, huddled at their feet. He could still see the influence of her ballet training in her way she moved, perfectly balanced on the balls of her feet.

"I...I suppose so," he muttered, trying to rake his scattered thoughts into coherence. "What - no, how are you here?"

"Surprised?" She perched beside him, hands folding neatly into her lap. Her voice gave nothing away, curiously dry and jaded. "I don't suppose you expected to see me again."

"I..."

A disdainful flick of her wrist. "It doesn't matter. We were both prey that night, Cougar."

Her face was palely translucent in the moonlight, fearless despite what he knew she must see – a predator in human shape, all glittering eyes and glittering fangs. The sharp indentations in his lower lip were comforting; he felt like he had a weapon against her.

Even though she was human, she could hurt him in ways no one else could.

"He got us all right, didn't he?" he said, unable to keep the bitterness from souring his voice. "They still think it was me."

"Oh yes." A strange thrum in her voice, almost exultant. "He got us."

He met her eyes, and what he saw there disturbed him. They had always been full of laughter and determination. But now he could find nothing he knew in her gaze, the lifeless grey of gravedust and water-logged wood.

"How did you escape?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." A flutter of a smile on her mouth, before it was gone, as though she'd forgotten how. "And I won't tell you anyway."

"What do you want with me?" he asked.

The pain of seeing her had sharpened, because this was not Sandrine as he had known her. This girl was changed. Harder, perhaps, stronger even, but she had lost Sandrine's ferocity. And he had to take some blame for that. This was what they had wrought, him and Blue. Both of them had left her.

The difference was that Blue didn't care. But he did. He cared, and it hurt, and it frightened him.

Because Sandrine and Toya were two of a kind. Sandrine had been a friend, even if he hadn't realised that, his first vermin friend. Was this what Toya would be like when Blue was done with her?

A shudder - quickly hidden - ran through him at the thought, and he pretended it was the cooling breeze that caused it. No.

"Your help," she said simply. "There's a contract out on your dear brother, Cougar."

The news didn't surprise him. Blue made as many stomachs turn as he did heads. "Yeah? And?"

"They've hired a killer, Cougar," she said gravely. "Someone very experienced."

He glared at her expressionless face, wondering when she had learned to hide her feelings so well.

"We all know Blue can look after himself."

"Usually he can." Something in her tones, evasive and dark, made him glance at her. "But this killer's found another way to get to Blue. You see, he does have one fatal weakness."

"What, they're going to make him read aloud until he kills himself in despair?" Cougar snapped. "Get to the point, Sandrine, I'm not having a good evening."

Her foot nudged at the girl, who groaned slightly. "Neither is she. There are two problems."

"My patience is so thin you could use it as the poster-child for anorexia," he pointed out, and got up to go. He didn't need to listen to cryptic rubbish like this.

Her voice cut through the night. "One. The assassin is a dragon."

"Big whoop," he muttered, wavering briefly as to whether he should leave his meal here or not. It wasn't that cold; chances were she'd miss out on pneumonia.

"Two. He's not trying to kill Blue."

Cougar whipped round so fast his gold eyes merged into a streak of light. "Then who's he after?"

"His soulmate."

The torrent of fear and anger that surged up through his body stole his voice before he got a grip. "What?" he managed. "No...you're kidding-"

"Yes," Sandrine said calmly. "She's a witch, a-"

"Friend of mine," he cut in, striding over to sit down. He needed to; his muscles had given like over-boiled noodles. "She's...I...we have to stop him!"

He thought there was a flash of elation in her face, but perhaps it was only a cloud veiling the moon. "That's why I need your help."

X - X - X - X - X

The door squealed like a trapped piglet, and Iager grimaced as he slipped into the house. It was deathly quiet, only the hum of the heaters buzzing distantly.

He stole into the kitchen, headed for the fridge. Using his power always left him with an appetite a lion would have envied and tonight was no exception. He scanned the shelves, squinting against the artificial light.

Health food! All bloody health food! What was it with this Thom guy and health food?

Right now, the state of his arteries was the last thing on his mind. He rummaged for sugary treats. None. A disgusted sigh escaped him-

"Try the freezer box," a high voice said behind him.

He jumped, and promptly hit his head on the fridge. Pain shot into his skull. "Oh, sh—" he turned around and as he saw the speaker, hastily changed what he had been about to say. "—ouldn't you be in bed?"

Kirsty Ausner, Thom's little sister, grinned at him with the sly knowing that was enough to turn his stomach. How on earth a kid like this had wormed her way to being one of Dark's most useful spies, he would never know. Her fine white-blond hair, spattered with mud, and the pale grey eyes that were soft and dusty made her look like a grubby cherubim, but Iager already knew she had a sharper mind than any kid should be gifted with.

"No," she said ingenuously, "I don't sleep much. Thom says I'm a natural inso...insno…"

"Insomniac?" Iager offered, hiding a smile. He knew that cute act was all a front, but it was still charming. "You and me both, kid. What were you saying about the freezer compartment?"

She boosted herself up onto the kitchen table, kicking her tiny feet. "There's a carton of chocolate ice-cream in there. I made Thom buy some." No surprise there. She had her older brother wrapped round her spoiled little finger.

About to haul out the ice-cream, Iager turned back, realising what was bothering him about her appearance.

"Kid," he said carefully, taking in her scuffed sneakers. "I'm going to ask you a question. Answer it honestly, or I'm going to use my powers on you, and you won't like that."

"You'd use your powers on me?" she said, bottom lip quivering in a truly awful attempt at knee-knocking terror. "That's _mean_."

"Mean," he echoed, amused by her sheer gall. "Kid, earlier you told Thom that the media was using sophisticated devices in order to manipulate the audience to their own depraved and detestable ends, and you thought they should all be eviscerated with their own publications. Now you're limited to 'mean'? Stop trying to be cute - it isn't going to work."

Her stare was as steely as he'd ever seen. Then the doe-eyed alarm disappeared, replacing by grudging admiration. "All right," she piped. "Fire away."

"Where have you been?" Not only was she fully dressed, a trail of mud marked her progress from the door. It was three a.m., a time when even vampires turned in for their wholly unnecessary beauty sleep.

"Out."

"I'm starting to feel homicidal urges coming on," he warned dryly. Iager had no qualms about threatening her; Kirsty was a thirty year-old cynic trapped in a child's body. "Truth, kid. I've been alive since before your simian ancestor was a glint in the primordial lactose-bearer's eye and I've heard every lie there is, and invented a dozen more."

Her rosebud mouth twisted. She kicked her feet more vigorously for a moment, probably imagining his shins were in the way. "I was watching TV- 'cause you know, Thom never lets me stay up late - when I saw someone outside the house, and they seemed funny, so I followed them."

"You did what?" he gaped, stunned by her sheer recklessness. "Even I'm not fond of wandering round this deathtrap at night - what were you playing at?"

A sullen stare. "He might have been important." Unsaid were the words; and important means good pay. He almost felt pity for her, so mercenary at an age when she should be playing catch, not playing with fire.

"And was he?"

"Dunno." She shrugged. "He looked like a normal guy - old, kind of slick, like a lawyer, but he moved like you do. And he was acting like he didn't want to be seen - staying in the shadows. But he went off to the Ghost Roads, and I don't like it there, so I stopped following him and came back. I was going to go to bed, 'cause Thom and Jay are back, but then you came in."

Some strange man. Iager had no doubt there were enough of those around Ryars Valley, from what Tri had said. But Kirsty hadn't known him, and she seemed to know everyone. Odd...

"We could go and look for him," she suggested sweetly. "You could blast him with your powers!"

"No, we could not," he said firmly. "You are going to get some sleep - no, I don't care if it's Sunday tomorrow, you are not watching late night trash - and so am I, and we'll talk about this guy tomorrow. Okay?"

For a moment, he thought she would argue, but then she caved in with a beaming, gap-toothed smile. She really was kind of adorable, he thought, giving in and letting her take a bowl of ice-cream to bed with her, even if she was a fiend. He was getting soft, but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Little did he know she had neatly betrayed his expected presence not only to Blue Malefici but also to Sandrine Matthews a fortnight ago. Outside, as the night aged like a fine wine, a lamia and a girl talked and planned and schemed.

And if he had heard their plans, he would not have been at all forgiving.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya woke slowly, light inching into her awareness, a low, rhythmic sound in her ears. She was warm, and safe, lying on her side, and her head was tucked under something. Her eyes opened almost reluctantly, squinting against the crisp morning brightness.

Not her room.

Not her bed.

Not _alone_.

Dread coiled up in her stomach, rising like an adder from a basket. The wolves. The hunt. Him. And then the nightmares, and the quiet words that were no less deadly.

She found herself staring at the sleeping profile of a boy who had one arm sprawled under his head. . And the other was around her, hand spread across her hip. It was his quiet breath that was so soporific in her ears, his warmth against her. Her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder, her temple against his jaw, uncomfortably, incredibly close.

Oh, dear Goddess.

Swivelling her head slowly, carefully, she gazed at his face. He didn't look any less fierce sleeping. It was strange; almost every other Nightworlder she looked somehow vulnerable in sleep. Cougar Redfern, with his constant catnapping, seemed younger and more innocent. Jepar, somehow terribly sad. Lisa Ochai, catching forty winks in front of the fire, merely weary.

She should have known Blue would be the exception.

Even flat on his back, there was something poised about him, something that suggested that though he slept deep and easy, he would wake just as smoothly. Or perhaps that was only her own fear. She found herself looking away, somehow afraid the intangible weight of her gaze, lighter than a thought, would wake him.

The twisted ridge of that scar was directly in her vision, mere inches away and this close, she could see how jagged the wound was. That had not been done gently and almost before she knew what she was doing, she traced the skin with one finger. Down from his heart, skimming over his ribcage.

He sighed, the vibration of his breath fluttering under her fingers like a butterfly's wing, and shifted a little.

Chatoya snatched her hand away, shocked at what she had been doing. She had been...been...touching Blue like he was a person. Like he was an intimate part of her life, which he was not and would never be. Like he was hers.

Put it down to early morning daze, she told herself, and get out of here.

Disentangling herself, she slid from the bed and padded out of the room into his house. His home.

Blue had a home. How strange. He had always seemed to her a rootless being, of nowhere and everywhere; more an embodiment of all she resented and feared than a person.

In the brightness of day, streaming through the windows (he didn't seem to bother with curtains, worryingly), she could see all the things she had missed when she had staggered in the previous night. Thinking of that, Chatoya examined her arms. Laced with half-healing cuts, bites and bruises. She would have to get a tetanus jab.

There was a guitar on the floor of the living room, paper scattered around it. She picked one up and realised it was music, a well-known song whose title startled her.

"If music be the food of love, play on," a cynical voice said.

She glanced round and he was there, in the doorway from the bedroom, looking disturbingly alert. His eyes, when he surveyed her, were no less chilly and merciless, sending that familiar prickle of fear down her spine.

She licked her lips. "You play?"

"Guitar, piano, emotions," he said softly. "Take your pick."

"You can leave the emotions alone," she said sharply.

His mouth curled up slowly into a tiny, serpentine smile. He stood there and looked at her until she wanted to run. "Too late. I've barely begun to have my fun."

"You won't be having any with me," she snapped, fear making her sharp.

One eyebrow arched derisively. "I rather think I already did." He moved into the room, steps fluid and slinking. "I'm not averse to having a little more."

"I'm sorry," she said harshly, trying not to remember just how she had given in to him at the ball, and failing miserably, "but unemotional wrecker really doesn't do it for me."

"I noticed." She was startled as the clear blue of his eyes glittered wickedly. "Who said I'm unemotional?"

"I did. You know, you having the memory span of a goldfish would explain why you won't leave me alone."

His smile was no longer serpentine but alluring, offering a challenge she was certain she would refuse this time. "It cuts both ways. I seem to recall you tracking me down not so long ago..."

She flushed. "For a different reason!"

"Ah yes, to hurl abuse." He was a step away. "Well, witch of mine, are you going to run, or stand your ground?"

"Why do you play all these games?" she demanded.

His eyes widened, and that ring of gold around his iris broadened suddenly, drenching the blue. "Because it's fun."

"Where's the fun? In frightening people? In knowing everyone hates you? In spending all your time killing?"

"You have it all wrong," Blue told her, shortening the distance between them with one step, and pulling her close. How could someone so cold feel so warm? "That's not the fun part."

"Let go."

"Say it like you mean it, and maybe I'll consider it."

Chatoya glared at him, completely unable to know what he felt. His stare was pitiless, unblinking, his skin still as pale as if he had been born of ice. A creature of the winter, whose kiss was so cold it burned.

"Let go. Please." She kept her voice pacific, like she might speak to a madman.

His mouth curled in that intensely sensuous smile that warned her he was in no mood to be merciful. "You owe me."

"Not this way," she whispered. That cobalt hair might be ruffled with sleep, his eyes a touch darker than usual, but he was entirely awake, of that she had no doubt. The killer in him kept constant vigilance.

"What other way is there?" he whispered back. The two of them, alone in this room, and they whispered as if someone had died. Before she could turn her head, or try to move away, he brushed his mouth over hers. The link sent fireflies tingling through her body, darting and nipping at her senses.

She had to struggle to remember what it was they had been talking about. "No. I won't allow this."

"It's not your decision. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune, and my dear, you're going to play a symphony for me if I will it so."

His touch grazed her wrists, warm and silky, and his fingers knitted with her own. That grip tightened painfully, inch by excruciating inch until her bones creaked. Chatoya forced herself not show her pain, biting the inside of her cheek. She tasted blood, and glared up at him, unwilling to beg, unable to free herself.

"Don't presume to tell me what I can and cannot do," he murmured, and let go, instead moving his hands to cup her face. She was startled by the kiss, fleeting and gentle, all the more unsettling for it. It terrified her the way he switched his emotions on and off, as if they didn't matter at all.

Part of her wanted this; this unexpectedly sweet, if fickle, side of him. But the rest, and oh, that was the greater part, wanted to be far from him.

"You taste of blood." Maybe that was puzzlement flickering in his eyes, maybe mere amusement.

She stared back, keeping her mind as calm and still as an ice sheet. Only odd sparkles bounced from the surface, sleek and small and insignificant.

"You're playing a very dangerous game," he mused, darkness lapping at his voice. "And you don't even know the rules."

"There are no rules with you." She put her hands over his and sent a blast of her anger at him. And to her surprise, he laughed, a soft sound that was velvet to the ears.

"Oh, there are, and you're learning to play by them. That was quite clever, witch of mine. You do seem to hate me so, yet you aren't trying to run or to hide. What should I read into this?"

"Read?" she said scornfully. "You can't read, Blue. And I'm not talking about books. You need emotions to understand people, and you have none."

"Unfair," he murmured. "And untrue."

"Untrue?" A hard, reckless laugh escaped her. "If you had any feelings, you'd stop doing this to me. You'd leave me alone. What should you read into this?" Her pale face was defiant as she glared up at him, her eyes as green and dark as yew trees. "That I'd like to leave, but you do have the advantage of superhuman strength."

"Mmm...true." To her surprise, he released her, gesturing to the door. "Well, don't let me keep you."

She stared at his impassive face. "You're just letting me go?"

A flick of his fingers. "For now. I said I wouldn't try anything, and I keep my promises, Chatoya Irkil." His pupils seemed to swell until his eyes were entirely black. "_All_ my promises."

It was only when she was walking away when she realised what he meant.

_I can make you fall in love with me,_ he had said to her in the intimate hush of a glade where only the trees and the sky heard his vow. _I can rip your soul in two. Don't interfere with me._

But she had, oh, she had meddled with disastrous consequences, and he was carrying out that threat.

I might not understand you, she thought angrily. I might even like you a little...but I will never love you. Not for what you are, not for what you were, not for what you seem and certainly not for what you could be.

You tore my family apart with your uncaring hands. The wounds you gave me are still cracked and bleeding, however well I mask them.

I will never forget that.

_I keep my secrets well, move on and never tell  
Someday they'll show  
And you raised me to be cruel, you raised me like a bruise  
I'm bleeding still_


	16. Chapter Fifteen

Hello again... It has been a much less hectic week (happily), and I am feeling almost sane again. Thank you to the fabulous and inspiring stars of you who reviewed last time round - it made my week! Thanks to;

**Cianna, Mandy, Domz, Baby Loca, Queen Kat, Mal, Midnight Haze, Danel, Lotty, Sianna Keyna, Meg, Me, Eleyne, Leopardess, Athena, Water Soul, Cliodhna, Stacy, Dark Princess, Jewel, Share **and last but in no way least, **Finn the Cat**.

The lyrics are from _The Perfect Drug_, by Trent Reznor. Here's hoping you enjoy!

**Chimera Part Fifteen**

_I come along but I don't know where you're taking me  
I shouldn't go but you're reaching, dragging, shaking me._

The moment Chatoya was out of the house, she realised she was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, her feet were bare and muddy, and she looked like she'd been jumped by Edward Scissorhands.

Peachy. Absolutely peachy.

For a moment she considered going back in and demanding- what? There was nothing that she wanted from Blue Malefici.

Not one single thing.

There was little else to do but start walking back; his house was snuggled in a hollow of trees, screened and secretive, yet when you reached it, oddly open. There were no curtains, no locks, nothing to indicate any kind of need for security or privacy. Only the crumpled wreck of his car in the drive betrayed any presence at all.

She gazed down the long stretch of road, worn and pebbled as so much of Ryars Valley was, and inwardly winced at the thought of walking on it. She wasn't even sure where she was; somewhere out by the lake, perhaps?

An odd noise buzzed in her head, almost like someone murmuring distantly. Easy to ignore, after a while, but persistent. As she started to walk, it seemed to get a little louder, a little more irritating. She shook her head, glancing about her for wasps or bees, but saw none.

At least it was early enough for most of Ryars Valley to be tucked up in bed - the uncomfortable thought that she had been too was shrugged off - while she made her slow, hobbling way home. A few cars passed, a lone motorcyclist was a black blur, but the world seemed empty otherwise.

Goddess, what a twisted mess her life lay in. She had hit Cougar, hadn't she? The memory of his eyes flashed into her head, aghast, wounded. She'd hit him, and shattered something she hadn't even been aware existed. Strange how friendship was so well camouflaged that only when it was gone would you notice it.

And those dreadful words to Tali, too - the dragon might be colder than she had been, but that didn't mean she was empty of feeling, unmarred by her past-

A car had stopped. When she recognised Thom's truck, she had a mad delusion that she was in her beautiful dress again, waiting for the dance to begin.

But the boy who put his head out of the window and beamed at her chirpily had glossy chestnut hair and bright eyes, and that devastating Irish accent. "Mornin', Chatoya - what are you doing this early? Jog-"

His voice died as his eyes took her in. His expression froze into one of pure horror.

The door flew open. Sean leapt out, heedless of the fact he was parked in the middle of the right-hand lane. He wavered, gawking at her as if he wasn't quite sure what to do.

"Are you okay? Your arms...you should get to a doctor! What happened?" For a second, she could have sworn his amber eyes seemed a disturbing orange. "Did someone try to...I mean did they...I..." Endearingly, he was blushing, and waving his hands in a manner that suggested over-enthusiastic conductor more than anything else. "I think Thom keeps a first-aid kit in the back-"

"Oh, no," she said hurriedly, suddenly far too aware of her tumbled hair and yards of cuts. "It wasn't anything like that."

The meaty stink of wolf breath seemed to roll over her, rancid and dreadful, and she spun suddenly, sure they were there-

"Hey!" A hand caught her arm, but with all the gentleness Blue had not had. "You've gone a nasty colour. What - what did this?" He carefully turned her arm, examining the cuts. "These look like wolf bites to me."

"When have you ever seen wolf bites?" she demanded, rattled by the concerned expression he wore, by the interest he was taking. "How do you know it wasn't a dog?"

"Well - I've, uh, heard about them." Uneasy now, dropping her arm and shrugging nonchalantly. "Look, it was either that or a big dog."

"A very big dog." The lie rolled out smoothly; she felt not a twinge of regret, though she shifted from foot to foot, feeling pebbles digging into the soles of her feet. "They feed them well round here."

On people like me.

"Se-an..." a new, plaintive voice came from inside the truck. "You promised me breakfast!"

Despair, tinged with irritation flashed on his face. "Hey, kid, there's a girl out here who's in a bit of a state. I won't be a minute."

"Really?" The other door slammed, and Chatoya heard the impact of two small feet hitting the ground as the owner jumped to the floor. She knew who it was already, and couldn't help but suppress a groan as the excited, cherubic face of Kirsty Ausner appeared. "Toya?"

"Brat," she said dryly. "How's the homewrecking?"

The big toothy smile appeared. Chatoya hadn't been fooled by it ever since the day she had found Thom's sister leafing through the contents of her room while she had been in the kitchen making cookies at Kirsty's fervent request. "Great! You get beat up?"

There was rather too much eagerness in her voice, and even Sean raised an eyebrow. That isn't a child, she thought darkly to him, that's a demon in dungarees. "It was a dog."

"Uh-huh," Kirsty drawled, sounding so uncannily like Cougar - who she almost hero-worshipped, at least until he caught her pouring lemonade in his VCR and promptly exploded like a nuclear bomb - that it stung a little. "Did the doggie eat your shoes too?"

Sean's gaze dropped to her feet. He blinked, then looked back at her, eyebrows raised.

Her teeth gritted. Evil little fiend. "Obviously you've not tried running in high-heeled shoes," and gods help the world when you get to that age, "but it's not terribly practical. That dog would have swallowed you whole."

Kirsty flipped her fingers, and turned back to Sean. "Can we go get breakfast now? The Ice-Cream Parlour's been open for five minutes, and I'm hun-gry..." The last was a wail.

"Not now," Sean snapped.

A small foot stamped, and Kirsty glared, dropping the angel act like a wolf flinging off its wool coat. "Now! She's upright, isn't she? She don't need any help, she just wants you to hang around because you're cute."

His smile was warm, filled with a gentle, very human charm. "I doubt it, kid. Look, go and sit in the truck, okay?"

Kirsty opened her mouth-

And an odd, blistering heat flared up in Sean's eyes that made Chatoya take an involuntary pace back. Not rage, but the promise of it, freezing her breath in her throat. "Now."

It vanished and she wasn't even sure what she had just seen as Kirsty scuttled back into the truck.

"I can give you a lift up to the doctor's," he offered. "You really need to get those cuts looked at. Or can you witch them better?"

"Yes!" She seized the excuse gladly. Too many piercing questions so far, and somehow, what had happened last night was private. It was her mistake, all of it, and she didn't want to share it with anyone, not even delightful strangers.

"Well, if you don't mind my asking," he drawled, and the lilt seemed to almost disappear, "why haven't you healed them already?"

"I can tell you're related to Kirsty."

"Ouch!" His smile became apologetic. "I don't mean to be nosy - well, I do, but those are some nasty scratches, darlin', and you don't look...your best."

"It's..."

"None of your business," someone snarled flatly, and picked her up with a painfully tight hold before striding off.

Needless to say, she was somewhat surprised.

X - X - X - X - X

Iager stared after the pair, mouth agape. His shock lasted only moment before he moved to chase the tall vampire whose steps were cutting up the ground in a way that seemed to suggest anyone who interfered would be crushed underfoot.

Then the dark, furious voice cut into his head like a machete.

_I know what you are, dragon, and you keep away from her!_

The words froze him still. _How did yo-_

He caught a flash of the vampire's mind; an inferno burning out of control, emotion and vitriol fuelling something only a hair's breadth from violence.

_Keep away._

A hand was tugging at his sleeve, and his gaze dropped to Kirsty, scowling. "Good," she said. "She's gone. You going to stop gawping and get me some food?"

Iager flicked one last glance at the disappearing vampire. "Guess so."

X - X - X - X - X

Morning had broken. Just like that witch girl.

"Good morning, dearest," she purred down the phone. "How goes life?"

The low, clear voice that answered sounded amused. "Life went by a long time ago, but death has proved most pleasant. Where is my son, Jacqueline?"

She wound the phone cord around her finger idly, her eyes soft with cunning, gentler than ever they were in emotion. "Wouldn't you just love to know, Bernie?"

"I would." The glee was fading from the voice. "That is why I asked."

She could visualise him easily; Laburnum Martin, elegant and groomed with pewter hair that had once been the dark lustrous colour of his son's - the same hawk-like handsome features, but with a focused gleam in the eyes, a colder, emptier smile. Nothing mad about Bernie, no, nothing at all.

"Is he going to pay for the sins of his father?" she inquired sweetly, listening for the reply with avid interest. It was pleasing to know that he was in her control. She held the key to the quarry he had pursued for three years, ceaseless, untiring, resolute.

"He will pay for his own sins," came the answer, and it was edged with steel. "In this life and the next - God will deal with the next, and I shall deal with this."

So he still kept up this fanatical belief in vermin gods. A wholly unholy man, this one, yet fascinating. Jacqui had to admit that the first time she met him as a guest in her home, the Redfern rainbow of his eyes had transfixed her, the conviction in his every action.

The illusion had lasted bare hours - hours until he had found her, playing quietly on the beautiful Bach piano in the darkened drawing room. Moonlight drifted through the net curtains across the patio windows, illuminating the chessboard floor, stark in black and white. She had designed it herself, loving the simplicity of the piano in the great expanse.

Hours until he had whispered to her, "Do as you would be done by - and you'll be done, my dear."

The memory of his hands, shoving her hard onto the floor, and the little dagger that had popped into her hand with a sense of relief, but equal fear for he had seen it; and that empty, zealous face had not changed one whit. He hadn't cared, hadn't even blinked-

"While I am all for laying one's ghosts..." The icy, vibrant tones had filled the room like the most heartbreaking symphony she had ever dared to play. "...laying one's host - especially without her express permission - is neither seemly, nor proper."

Blue had stepped in, moving through the shadows like a panther in the jungle, every step silent, his fangs just barely showing.

"Still up to your old tricks, Bernie?" he had purred - the only time Jacqui had ever heard him call anyone by a moniker. "Like the dog that you are."

There had been something ferocious under those words - she believed it was as close to anger as Blue would ever come. Not out of any protective instinct for her, never that, but she caught for the first time, flashes of his thoughts. He detested this man, this unprincipled priest.

"Well, well, the Redfern bastard." Bernie had chuckled and stood, the fanaticism replaced by something wary and watchful. Neither noticed as Jacqui scuttled away on her hands and knees, as far from both of them as could be. Only when there was a wall at her back did she start to breathe again.

"I'm no Redfern."

"How true." Bernie smoothed down his hair, ignoring Jacqui as though she were an insect. She clutched the knife closer. "No Redfern is as warped and corrupt as you. Poisoning the minds of others, stealing away sweet Telerana, that pretty little girl with such lovely hair - corrupting _my_ son."

Blue's lip had curled in that slow, contemptuous manner. "Sweet Telerana - Telerana who begged and screamed not to be given any religious instruction by you? Oh, she was a pretty girl, wasn't she? Especially with those bruises all over her face, especially with those burns on her arms."

Silence had said more than Mozart in all his might could as Blue stepped forward, his voice even quieter than before.

"She's a lethal girl now," he whispered.

Bernie's face twisted momentarily, and Jacqui gradually stood up, sliding her back up the wall and keeping the knife aimed at him.

"And your son - yes, why don't we talk about him?" Blue continued, and a rare, astounding smile touched his face. "Why don't we tell Jacqueline all about the enclave - and that very special father-son relationship you had?"

"Fiend," Bernie spat, a demon's face fitting over that smooth countenance. "Your soul will-"

"I have no soul."

Looking at Blue's proud, stunning face, impassive and invincible, she could believe it.

"Go away," he said quietly. "Go back to your preaching and leave the pursuit. They're out of your reach now. We all are."

Laburnum Martin had gone - and she had wondered why Blue had left him alive.

She thrust away the scene; she had long stopped fearing Bernie, from the moment he had begun to respect her skill with a weapon. "You may deal with Aspen however you choose," she said simply. "He's your son, after all."

That very special father-son relationship - yes, she suspected it was. After all, if he would dare to lay a hand on Telerana Orage, the Viper Fury, she would imagine Aspen had been beaten until he could scarcely walk; it would explain the scars all over him. But vampires could take pain. She had learned that quick enough.

"So tell me." His voice darkened until it was leached of all amiability. "Tell me."

"I'll do better than that," she announced, examining her free hand to check her fingernails remained unchipped. "I'll fix you up a meeting tomorrow. Good enough?"

Grudging silence. "It will do." A click as the phone was hung up.

Jacqui hummed happily as she buzzed about her hotel room, just as lovely and luxurious as Blue had said, arranging diamante clips in her messy hair, and deciding just how to react to the - naturally - tragic news she would no doubt soon be hearing about poor, weak Chatoya Irkil.

And of course, she had the perfect way to remove Aspen now, in case he tried to insist he would remain because his dear successor had gone to meet her maker.

The witch girl dead; Aspen good as.

It was turning out to be a marvellous day.

X - X - X - X - X

"Put me down!" Chatoya hissed, trying unsuccessfully to get an elbow into Cougar's ribs. He was hurting her, his grip rough on her cuts. "What are you doing?"

"At risk of sounding melodramatic," he said in a voice vibrating with barely-leashed emotion, "saving your life."

His fixed expression confirmed his words. There was that stubborn set to his jaw that warned her Cougar was in one of his moods. "From what exactly?"

"That Sean person!"

"What?" She pulled at his hands with no success. If she'd had any magic left, he'd have got a shock that made his already spiky hair stand on end. "Put me down right now, Cougar Redfern! I want an explanation."

"Fine," he snapped. But for all his anger, his hands were careful as he set her down. For a second, his storm-filled face was so close she could smell the subtle tang of aftershave, mixed with a simple spicy male scent.

He had fed, she realised. His eyes were a shimmering lake of fire, the bruise she'd given him long faded. There was an evanescent glow to him that made that hard, guarded face almost radiant. A fallen angel, with violet shadows under his eyes, as if...as if...

Hadn't he been wearing that last night?

But the thought was driven out of her mind as he stabbed a finger at her, voice quivering with pure rage. "What would you like me to explain? How blind you are? How crazy you are? How-_what the hell happened to you_?"

His lips were parted, paused mid-tirade as he took in her wounds.

"I ran into a spot of trouble," she said evenly. She blinked, and the hard green glints of wolf eyes were imprinted on her eyelids. Her heart skipped, but she was in daylight, she was safe. "Took you a while to notice."

"I was...distracted." They both knew he meant angry. "Toya...did the Pack jump you?" A horrifying thought struck him. "Cern didn't - you didn't run into him?"

"No."

"Then what?" Something swelled in his eyes, incomprehensible but anguished. The bruise on his eye had gone, yes, but its impact remained, an awful, silent barrier.

"Just wolves," she told him, and produced a smile in the hope that it could mend the rift she felt hanging between them. "I walked home."

"You didn't! Toya-" He stopped himself, raking his hands through his coal-black hair, tousling it even more. "But...oh hell...why?"

A lift of her shoulders: she was unutterably weary of replaying it in her head. It had happened, it was done with - why must there be so many consequences, why could she hear the wolves' growl echoing in her head, why was she still so afraid, so hurt, so alone?

"There wasn't any other way to get home." The odd pain that she was never aware of flickered in her eyes. She only saw something soften a little in Cougar's face, something that pulled the words from her less reluctantly. "I was...I don't know, confused, crazy, I needed to think."

He gave her a shaky smile. "I know what that's like."

He reached out, and took her wrist, simply laying a finger along her pulse. Then the golden blade of his mind touched hers, and a feeling of shame enveloped her - no, his shame. He was apologising to her in the only way he knew.

He couldn't say the words, but he didn't need to. He had bared his soul beneath her foot.

The gift - so unexpected, so precious - made her breathe in, startled. He had let down all his mental shields, and she could have raked through his innermost thoughts - but she didn't. That was part of this, a deep and rare courtesy. The sacrifice was offered, and refused.

"I'm sorry too," she said, her eyes resting on the clear skin where her fist had connected. Gently she broke the contact. "But...but...you're going to be angry with me again."

Alarm appeared in his eyes. "Why?"

"I thought I had better tell you before Blue does," she continued evenly, not allowing herself to stop telling this.

He stepped back, watching, waiting, tensed. "Did you kiss him again?"

"No." She didn't realise it was a lie until she had said it, and recalled that brief, parting and hostile embrace. "But he rescued me."

"He what?"

"From the wolves." A glance at his face said he didn't buy it. "No...I don't know why he did either. But he did and he...took me back to his house."

Murder glittered in Cougar's eyes. "And you did what exactly?"

She tried to think of a way to phrase that wouldn't sound ludicrous, or suggestive, or just plain slutty. "Nothing - but..."

She couldn't say to him, of course, that Blue had comforted her. That she had seen one ray of light shine into that icy, unlit hollow that he was. Never would she mention the words that had passed between them; she knew that no one would understand. Chatoya wasn't even sure she did.

"But?" He seized upon it at once.

She sighed. "Look, you have to understand that I was - I was not in a good state, Cougar. I kept dreaming of the wolves, and I woke up screaming-" Horror, mixed with concern growing in his eyes. "They hurt me. I kept thinking they were in the room with me, and Blue finally got sick of me waking up screaming."

Cougar muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Sneaky bastard."

"And we ended up - and I mean this in a strictly literal sense, because you know I'm not like that - sleeping together."

She looked at her friend, pleading with him to understand. His eyes were brighter than ever, almost painful to look at, and the silence exuding from him was dreadful.

"You shared a bed with my brother?" Quiet, very even tone. "And he - let me get this straight - he did not bite you, or try anything?"

"I threatened him," she said weakly, only half-lying. She had - even if the threat had been a bluff, and Blue had known.

"And you seriously, truly think that is what deterred him?"

She could only nod.

His temper snapped.

"Why are you so stupid!" he shouted. "Toya, you're mad, gods, you know what Blue is, maybe even more than me."

"What does it matter?" she screamed back. "Why should you care?"

"We're friends!" His eyes were white lightning, forking through her. "I don't want to see you hurt, I don't need to watch another person get ripped to pieces by my sweet little brother, who isn't so little, and let me assure you, isn't so sweet! Don't you understand, Toya, you - you _matter_ to me."

The genuine agony of saying that struck her. She knew that Cougar didn't like admitting his feelings, because some part of him still heard the enclave preaching that emotion was weakness. It was a poultice on her anger.

"Cougar," she said more gently, "I'm not stupid."

"You're acting it," he mumbled, looking anywhere but at her. "Please Toya - everyone else I...cared about, he destroyed. Carinna, and Ruby, and Sonj...he doesn't care. You could be...the love of my life and he'd still stick a knife in your heart to see how slow you'd die."

She put a hand on his arm and his eyes flicked up, startled and shining with a searing something, then down again, even more quickly. "I didn't realise you were upset about me," she told him gently. "I thought it was Blue, because he's still your family."

His smile was thin, slimmer than a crescent moon. "I've lived with him all my life. I'm used to it, even though he still stabs me in the back every now and then. It's you I'm worried about. Please, Toya, don't get messed up with him."

"I'm trying not to," she said. "He was just there last night, that was all. I needed someone. Honestly, if someone had been Atilla the Hun, I'd have gone with them."

He half-laughed, though the misery didn't leave his eyes. "Someone should have been me."

"It shouldn't have been anyone," she replied, pulling at her knotted hair dejectedly. "I shouldn't have walked back alone."

His voice caught her, a little rougher than usual and full of the odd wistfulness she had noticed lately. "That wasn't what I meant."

There was a pause, a silence full of unsaid words that fluttered like tethered birds, striving to escape, never quite slipping free. His golden eyes were exposed, and searing, and fixed on her with unwavering attention.

Speak, and the moment would be gone; in that instant, she felt he was about to do something, about to say something that would set those words soaring free-

"Wasn't it?" she said, and felt the beating of wings die, clipped, yet waiting - somehow waiting for another chance.

His eyelashes dropped, and the tension left the air. "No," he said shortly - almost irately. "It wasn't."

And afterwards, during the slow, silent walk back with his silence near sullen but more injured about her, she wondered what he had been about to say - and why she had been so afraid to hear it.

_Turn off the sun, pull the stars from the sky  
The more I give to you, the more I die._


	17. Chapter Sixteen

Many thanks to the wonderful people who reviewed last time round - thank you for all your comments:

**Mandy, Sianna Keyna, Wasurera, Eleyne, Meg, Midnight Haze, Lotty, Pyro Angel, Amber, dljewel, Blaze Baelfire, Leopardess, Queen Kat, Alara Drache, Diomede, Suga Bay Bee** and last but by no means least, the lovely, **Dark Princess6**. Thank you all so much!

I adore hearing what you think.

Lyrics come from Fear Factory's _Timelessness _(Album: Obsolete). Thank you for reading!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Sixteen**

_I felt dark night closing in upon me  
Chilling shadows surrounding me._

"Do you have to?"

Tam looked at up at him with all the imploring she could muster from where she was plaiting Celia's hair. It was hard to connect her sweet, dreamy boyfriend with the violence and fear he caused. An assassin.

James Bond dealt with assassins. Jackie Chan did. Assassins were supposed to be eerie and dressed in black, and she had a vague idea that they should have a Russian accent. Aspen tended to wear merry, exotic colours ('It confuses people' was his explanation), and he had only a slight tendency to blur his words in one breathy rush, but he did have the eerie attitude down perfectly.

Her soulmate nodded, his odd eyes brilliant and possessive. "I don't want to," he said wistfully. "Even if it is only breakfast, I'd much rather be here with you. Jacqui's such a..." He hesitated.

He killed people, yet flushed when he had to be derogatory. The only time he lost that peculiar inhibition was when he was angry, but that hardly ever happened now.

"Bitch?" she suggested.

One shoulder lifted in an uneasy shrug. "I guess. But she has her good points," he said brightly, perking up. "She can gut someone faster than you can-"

Her expression registered, and he half-smiled, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You...didn't want to know that, did you?"

"Not really." The smile vanished, and she felt the kitten's paw-swipe of his distress because he had disappointed her - failed her again, he was too strange, too stupid, too-

_You never disappoint me_, she said truthfully, and his smile returned, delighted and shy.

His insecurity was a plague sometimes, but hopelessly captivating too. With his hard, narrow face that held bright intelligence and simple charm, and his pure sweetness, how Aspen could ever believe that he was somehow not enough was beyond her, and she always told him so.

Celia raised her head. "You gut people? I mean, I know you have a job as an undertaker, but do you really do that?"

"Yeah," Aspen admitted, gazing down at his sister serenely. Celia, Tam had been told, was a smaller, prettier version of herself, her feature more delicate and refined, with flawless golden skin that Tam envied and silky black hair that was as straight and shiny as Tam's was curled and horrendously mad. If Tam's hair was at a rave, Celia's was at a soiree. "See, some of them want to be embalmed and we-"

"No detail," her little sister said hastily, crinkling her nose. "Just go and meet your freaky embalmer friend and stop distracting Tam. I don't want wonky plaits."

Aspen blew Tam a kiss on his way out, and threw back a parting shot, "Maybe you've just got a wonky head."

X - X - X - X - X

"Toya?"

Thom's quiet voice was unusually loud, shattering the sleepy silence of his house as she came in, supported by Cougar. He gaped, his usual equanimity eradiated by the sight of them.

"Guess who got herself ripped to shreds by Red Riding Hood's favourite guy?" the lamia drawled, a sardonic smile curling his mouth.

The Old Soul shook his head ruefully, hair forming a fleeting blond halo in the air. "I don't need to guess. Toya - sit down. I have some antiseptic somewhere...I guess you've run low on magic or you'd have done it yourself."

Cougar guided her over to the couch. She waited nervously, her hands resting in her lap; without thinking, her fingers rubbed together anxiously beneath the vampire's regard. On the way back, she had caught him staring at her with the oddest expression - then he realised that the watcher was the watched, and his face had closed off.

The buzzing noise that had hummed like a distant choir in her head had not vanished, but grown worse and worse - she supposed it came from where her head had cracked on the ground last night - yet there was something peculiar about it. No pain, only a vague, unfocused noise.

By the time she reached the house, there seemed to be almost words in the sound, indistinct echoing fragments.

Goddess, she would be glad when her powers returned and this bizarre side-effect was gone..

"You two are quiet," Thom remarked as he came back in, his eyes flicking from onto the other. His very presence was soothing; the Old Soul exuded a placid calm that Chatoya often wished she had. "Or are you both still spitting over last night?"

She stared up at him in mute horror. How could he bring it up when they had barely put it aside?

"Don't look at me like that, either of you," he said firmly, dropping a bottle of antiseptic by Chatoya, and seating himself on the arm of the chair. "I'm not going to sit through an awkward silence because you're both too stubborn to sort it out."

"I am not stubborn," she and Cougar said in tandem.

That wrung a reluctant smile from her which was reflected on Cougar's face; the sullen hazel of his eyes lightened to a soft honey colour.

"Of course not," Thom said dryly. "Cougar, can you go and get some water and the first aid kit upstairs?"

"What did your last slave die of?" the vampire snapped.

Thom chuckled lazily. Nothing much fazed him, and Cougar Redfern in one of his moods was no exception. "Exhaustion. Cougar, I want to talk to Toya on her own - I was aiming for tact."

"Should have aimed for something a bit more solid than that," she muttered under her breath.

Thom snorted, and hastily turned it into a cough at Cougar's puzzled look. "Look, do me a favour, okay?"

When the vampire had gone, some of that mirth faded. He wasn't a looker, their Thom, and he didn't have Cern's sweetness or Jepar's sunny charm but he did have a gently barbed turn of phrase, and a devastating practicality that had got them out of many a tight spot.

"You realise that swapping saliva with Blue Malefici was not a good idea," he murmured. "It's the one thing guaranteed to flip a lot of people's switches. You should have seen Tali come storming in last night - you'd think JJ was a panda 'shifter from the pair of black eyes she gave him when he dared to suggest she might have been a touch harsh."

"I don't need another lecture," she said wearily.

His eyebrows arched. "I wasn't giving you one, so that suits us both. Toya, it's not any of my business what you do - but the rest of them think it's theirs, so if there is something going on with you and this Blue guy, who I haven't met but well, I've heard chapter and curse about - keep it to yourself. And be careful." He ruffled her hair. "You're the only other sane person here."

"I've got my doubts about that," she said glumly.

Cougar stomped back in and deposited various pieces of first aid on the carpet. "Thom, can we talk?"

"Fire away," the Old Soul answered, digging out wads of cotton and bandages.

"Privately." Chatoya watched Cougar from the corner of her eye - he was fidgety. "Umm...it's about Sean."

Thom threw her the antiseptic and she caught it deftly, wincing as her muscles protested. "No problem - Toya, clean those scrapes, there's probably about fifty thousand bacteria holding a communist rally in them by now."

Whatever it was Cougar told Thom - she could only catch the faint murmur of their voices outside the ringing in her ears - he came out looking distinctly ruffled.

"I'm just going out," he said briefly. "Cougar'll give you a hand." An anxious look in her direction. "Don't go anywhere." The door slammed moments later, and she was left with the vampire.

X - X - X - X - X

Opal fires had lit the morning sky, and set Iager's memories ablaze as pastels churned across the dawn and streaked the undersides of the clouds with pale rainbows. Time seemed unreal, for everywhere he glanced, he saw hints of this enclosed, chilly little realm as it once had been.

Ryar's Valley, but how he wished that Ryar had lived to love it.

Once it had been only the fire valley, Fireblade's home - but after her death, he had given it her name, and made it her tomb.

His feet carried him along blindly. He'd left Kirsty in the Enticing Ices Parlour with a group of other grinning, too-sharp children who had clamoured for her to join them. Iager had supplied her with a vast chocolate sundae that looked like a slimmer's arch-nemesis, and happened to be the most expensive item on the menu. And when the other kids had heard he was paying, somehow they had wheedled, begged and sulked until he had paid for not one, not two, but six dieter's Darth Vaders.

It hadn't bothered him one whit. He had scarcely been aware of the shrill voices, of the sly looks exchanged, of the pavement that seemed to slide beneath his feet as he walked.

This place had changed so much, yet everywhere he looked, he saw the ghosts of yesteryear floating, tantalising, in the winter warnings.

Winter! There had been no winter here once, only endless heat, fires spiralling up hundreds of feet into the sky, leviathan orange cobras that few could charm and fewer tame. Even the water boiled up in geysers, cloaked by thick clouds of steam that were like inhaling liquid flames.

There had been no winter once, but then the mortals had come, Ryar had gone, and he had remained.

She'd been beautiful, Ryar, and he'd been blind to her, stupid, vain, arrogant. Years and years passed while he had insulted her, ignored her, used her when it suited him, and occasionally wondered why the girl stayed handfasted to him with a patient, simply devotion that had raised only boundless contempt in him.

He had married her for power, that was all. Bar that first, unique meeting, he had wanted only power.

And she - she, selfless - she had loved him.

She would have loved this season - he remembered her endless drifts of moonstruck hair, the way she laughed the first time she saw snow. She would have fitted in, as translucent and subtle as frost.

She was not Cesera, strangest and most beautiful of the Dragon-King's daughter, nor Avy, of the mind that soared like an eagle about the heavens, and he had not thought her worthy of him.

Yet he had chosen her, of all the thirteen daughters. Of them all, only she had not tried to bewitch and allure, to charm, to bribe, to blackmail, to threaten, to entice. And when he had to select a daughter to wive with, it had been her he chose; the gentlest, the simplest, and in the end, the finest.

He had scarce noticed her until he sought out the last of the daughters, wondering how she had eluded him so long while he looked them over like a buyer at a cattle-market. Ryar, the tender, the innocent. The last of Sangager's sirens, and the loneliest of all.

Her first words were like a charm that he held close to him now.

"Which of your sisters would you have me marry?" he had asked her mockingly, wanting - no, needing - the attention of this girl who alone of the thirteen, had steadfastly ignored him.

"She wouldn't," Cesera had cut in, stepping in front of Ryar and lowering her eyelashes for an instant so the power of her lilac eyes blasted him like a wine-drenched sunset. "Ryar is destined to be an old maid, Fireblade. All she does is sit and watch and pretend she means something to someone."

He was surprised when the other girl said not a word of reproach. She only lowered her head over the piece of paper she clutched so that the glistening mass of oyster-shell hair hid her face.

"Darling-" the older girl had begun, laying her hand upon his arm, a purr of promise in her words.

"Do run along, Cesera." The cruelty hadn't even been intentional - it had just been his way then. He was Fireblade, greater even than a king's daughter. "Go and pretend you mean something to someone."

Her mouth had opened once; he simply swung his head, staring down sunset with an inferno.

And he had been left alone with this girl, hunched up tightly on a stool in this shadowy corner of the Court. Her hands were smudged with charcoal, and very thin and small.

"Ryar," he had mused aloud, inspecting her bowed head. Neither word nor deed showed she had heard - still she scratched onto the piece of parchment that rested uneasily on her knees. "What a lovely name."

Her head flew back, as though someone had grabbed her hair and tugged sharply.

The depth of grief in her eyes had been alien to Fireblade; they were a curiously deep violet, but lit with flecks of oyster-radiance, and pain thrashed wildly in them.

"It means unwanted."

Her voice haunted him most of all, a treasure among dragon-folk. Soft and whispery when she spoke, when she sang, it was pure wonder. There was fire in her voice, and it had burned even empty Fireblade, all those years and memories ago.

But then, with her face bare of expression and her agonised eyes alone betraying the façade, he had only heard the quiver in it. And it had struck something strange, something new in the dragon named as violent, mindless, reckless.

He had wanted to help her.

"Does it?" he had said, and examined the face turned to him.

No, not Cesera's brand of sensuous splendour, but the petal-pink mouth was wonderfully full and those eyes, bruised and deep-set, somehow imploring.

A shrug, and the pale neck arched like a swan's as Ryar averted her eyes again.

He had startled even himself then, and dropped to his knees on the cold and rough stone floor.

Yes, her face was not hidden from him here, nor could it be. Cautious for the first time in his life, Fireblade reached out, not daring to take his eyes from her lest she flee like childhood and innocence, and laid his hands on her knees. Parchment crackled under his touch; her music, lines and curves of song ensnared, separating their flesh.

"Ryar." Her face was frozen, again the mask of civility Sangager demanded of his children and his Court, but her eyes were traitors to her expression. Those tiny hands stilled on the parchment, curled together in her lap, not so far from where his rested. "Ryar..."

"No," she whispered, and the husky voice sent frissons down his spine in a way that Cesera's promises, Avy's flirting, Ulryat's laughter could not. "Go away, Fireblade, don't play with me. I may not be my sisters, but I'm no fool. I don't want you, and I don't want to be part of your horrible games."

Her eyelashes trembled as she blinked frantically.

Before he knew what he was doing, before he could even think, his hands were tugging at the coiled knot of hers, separating her fingers and marvelling at how delicate they were, how dew-cool her skin and smooth her knuckles until their hands were intertwined.

The mask had dropped, useless, crumpled at this simple touch. Panic flooded into her eyes, and the oyster-shell iridescence swelled until the violet was only threads in the radiance. "No," she said, a fine shuddering alarming him - him, alarmed by this! "No, Fireblade, please, please, it's not fair to do this..."

"I've never been about fair," he heard his own voice say as he leaned closer to her. Fireblade's words, and Fireblade's voice, but this was not Fireblade's feeling, this yearning to protect her, to curl her in his arms and makes her his in a way that could not be broken by time or place or person.

A whimper escaped her, and Ryar tried to shrink back, but he wouldn't let her. The pity he had felt was overridden by that fierce, good need to claim her, to make this one daughter who had paid him no heed notice. He was Fireblade; he was a weapon, he was burning and passionate and consumed all he wanted, that was all and that was everything.

Their lips met, and he was swamped by an unusual impulse to be gentle. Her mouth trembled under his for one precious moment as he didn't move but only let their lips rest together, an intimate touch that mixed their breath.

Her hands tightened about his, so much strength for such smallness, and he kissed her then.

There would never be anything to compare with that moment - that one piece of humanity in an inhuman life. Nothing to match the sweetness and tenderness in that kiss, the way her mind opened like a lotus flower to bare her heart in all its glory. And he saw.

Ryar, silent Ryar, had longed after Fireblade for all centuries that he had come to her father's court, Fireblade with his tiger's hair and volcano eyes, Fireblade who blazed like the heaven's lights made flesh. Yearning was peppered by a deep abiding regret because she knew he would never want her.

Oh no, he remembered thinking, his hands releasing hers to cup her fragile face. His thumbs gently brushed her eyelashes, horrified to find tears caught on them. Oh no, nightingale, you're so wrong.

And here he was, so bronzed and smiling, swaggering into her father's court as he always did to take his pick of the crowds that thronged him with eager, lusting interest. Here he was - toying with her, and now he knew her love, oh, he knew, and he had the greatest weapon of all.

He tasted salt then, a tear that had eased between their lips. But he didn't stop, and nor did she - her hands caressed his face, tangled in his hair, wild and yet hesitant in a way he couldn't quite define. Tears and passion, a salt-soaked kiss that somehow tasted oh so satisfying.

And when at last - after what must have been centuries, not moments - that clinging embrace broke, the tears still streamed from her eyes and fell to smear the lines of music.

"There," she said, the words wrenched from her throat on a sob. "There, you've got all thirteen daughters now, Fireblade. Go away, go away and leave me be! You know, you've got your power over me. Why don't you go and find Cesera, and the pair of you can make the beast with two backs-"

"She's already got two faces," he had snapped, angry at himself, angry at her pain. "She doesn't need another spine to match. Don't blame me, Ryar ap Sangager, romance is not a spectator sport."

"Romance!" How lovely her face, how marble-pale and animated. "That's not romance. That's just - just lust. You don't want me any more than you want my sisters!"

"How true," he had hissed, lying and livid, aching, trying to hold the scraps of that curious and wondrous impulse to help her - but it was gone, she was the duckling among the swans again.

He had walked away then. When he glanced back, wanting, needing to feel her eyes watching him, to know that he held her like all the others, her hair shielded her face, and her hands wrote upon the parchment once more.

So long ago, his darling nightingale gone now, he so different from that arrogant fool boy. After that first meeting, many things were to change. She became his mate, neglected, unloved, while he cavorted with others - yes, even with her sisters - and drowned lives in blood. Fireblade had been a monster.

But Fireblade had died long ago, buried as surely as Ryar was. He was Iager now, and the face was the same but the soul was what it had been in that fleeting moment when his heart had ached for someone else.

He walked down to the lake, down to her grave. It had never been water, never this still and silver mirror, but when he had lost her - and he realised, he saw how unutterably much he had lost, he had brought her here, and buried her with his own hands, and covered her tomb in the rushing water. Only him, and her, while the dragon-world searched for Fireblade, not realising that it was Fireblade he buried in that grave with Ryar, sweet Ryar, whose voice was still but whose songs would echo forever in his head, lovelier and softer with each sun that sank.

The bench that overlooked the lake was cold, splintered, but he could gaze on the water unheeded, wondering if she still lay untouched in her tomb.

I miss your song, my sweet nightingale. I miss the music you carried for me in your heart, and my world fell silent without you.

He had thought for a while that keeping himself busy might fill the gap. Later he'd thought that Trifolia would, but that too had been a delusion. Returning here had shown him that; it felt so right, so proper to be near to her, to watch over her resting place and try to atone for his cruelty to her.

"Iager?"

He jumped, startled. "Yeah?"

And then he remembered that that was not who he was supposed to be. He whirled, his eyes wide and worried to take in the sight of Thom Ausner, mouth drawn tight and his glasses crooked on his nose.

Iager thought, if I were Fireblade, if I were the monster and Ryar stood in my shadow still, I would kill him without a thought or a care.

He heard the lap of the lake water behind him, and the thought faded.

"Guilty," he muttered, and had never spoken a truer word.

X - X - X - X - X

A firm grip took her arm, and turned it gently; Cougar's pupils dilated slightly as he saw the horrific wounds, clear in the daylight, long and jagged. "God," he muttered softly. "They got you good, babe."

"They did." The nightmarish feel of the fur, so soft on her skin, and the claws, so cruel, reverberated though her like a snatch of invasive song. How could a memory shred her like this?

He started to clean the remaining cuts, the antiseptic causing nettle-like barbs of pain in the gashes, but his touch all the while incredibly tender. An astringent smell made them both wrinkle their noses.

From under her eyelashes, Chatoya observed his dear, familiar face, the determined set to his mouth as if he wanted to say something but forced the words back.

"Tell me about the wolves." His voice was distracted; his eyes were dazzlingly sharp. "Why you, Toya? It's not a hunt night - you've not had any run-ins with our darling pack, I don't understand why they would."

"I don't know. One minute I was walking - I fell, and they went for me - ouch!" His grip had tightened, making her flinch as poppy-red blood trickled from an opened cut. "Careful!"

"Sorry." A sigh escaped him. He was always most striking in melancholy; it tempered his hard mouth and too-bright eyes, but Chatoya would rather have had him ordinary and happier than stunning and miserable. "So you don't have any idea why the big bad wolves came out of the woods?"

"Not a one."

"Although," and a little mischief had turned his voice into a suggestive satiny murmur, "I have to say, you did look good enough to eat."

She couldn't help but smile. "Should I be trusting you with my body, Redfern?"

"Oh no." The soft, serious tones made her look at him, and his hands stilled. The intensity in his eyes stole her breath. "No, not at all." He blinked and the look vanished, replaced by a mixture of mischief and - bizarrely - regret. "Flaunting all your veins last night, most cruel."

"Predator," she said, glad to feel their relationship slip back into the easy familiarity. Cougar flirted like most people breathed, and indeed, tended to be the cause of heavy breathing in some.

"Prey," he retorted, then the amusement was replaced by a frown. "You shouldn't be anyone's quarry, not anymore, Toya. I thought we were all safe here."

"Nothing's safe." The sadness invaded her voice, an unwanted thief of this brief peace. No, nothing was safe. Not her family, or her friends or even her emotions. All held to ransom, and the price to retain them was too high to even contemplate. "Least of all me."

The darkness of that night filled her head like a plague of locusts, chewing up her contentment and leaving a churn of fear and anguish. The heat of the wolves' paws, and that crushing weight on her - and then the wet cool of their teeth, terrible, terrible-

The sound in her head rose like a wave, and words formed from the clamour;

_such a lovely face can sweeten ugly lies_

She shuddered, a ripple of frosty revulsion that passed from her toes to her head.

"Toya?"

"Nothing," she muttered vaguely, thrusting the memory away...

_but such an ugly soul can tarnish any truth_

The voice was still there, cool and efficient and incisive. And her vision seemed to slide and blur, as though she stood before a rain-smeared window, washing the world into one formless mass-

"Chatoya!"

Blinking dazedly, she found Cougar was holding her shoulders, holding her up. There was a half-afraid, half-worried expression on his face, before it smudged into a faint silver mist.

"I...don't feel good," she managed, the haze seeping through her skin and into her mind until nothing was clear except the voice that hacked through everything else; the voice that was shards of distant icy Pluto, and cutting her deep.

"You don't say?" There was a panicky note to Cougar's voice; his grip on her was becoming looser - or was it only that she could no longer feel it? "Oh no, Toya, don't faint - don't you dare!"

_there's nothing to her but what they put there, nothing to most of those second-rate butchers with going-rate souls_

Yes - yes, she knew that voice; it had whispered in her dreams before but now it mused idly, causing her to recall a time when she had intruded on this wonderfully sharp and intelligent mind before.

_and you can cover nothing with something, but within it's still hollow_

Blue.

He was Blue, and she was - something to him, or was she only a hollow nothing? Who knew, she only knew that she was in his mind, secret and stealthy. She had slipped unnoticed into his thoughts once before with a...mirror spell - all it had taken was blood, and a connection, and a reflection. Enough blood - and the connection beyond all and - a reflection?

A reflection...in water, in silvered glass...

_a shrewd creature, that one, with her false smiles and her pretended affections, and she was very clever yesterday, to use those wolves as a weapon for her_

Or in another's mind.

_but my witch is more of a weapon than she realises, so much force curled in her and she barely knows, she barely realises - and yes, Pursang could be hers and more importantly, could be-_

There was a sharp pain in her arm, and the mist thinned just enough for her to see two flaring gold hoops about black bullets, and to hear someone shouting.

_Can you hear me?_ they demanded so loudly it made her head spin. _Toya, can you hear me?_

But his voice was gone, flung to the winds that streamed past her until she was no longer in her own mind, but a hopeless passenger within another's soul.

Sunlight, the impact of her footsteps, and looking at someone, the tall boy whose dark hair had three pale streaks running through it and a broken, flashing smile to match a light and fast voice-

"Don't you think Jac-"

X - X - X - X - X

"-qui's changed lately?" Aspen said happily, walking backwards along the street so he could watch Blue's face. Of course, it was perfectly impassive, but he still watched because just occasionally Blue's guard would slip.

The endless blue eyes were bullets to the brain; the intense, invasive stare nailed Aspen's soul still. Nothing on earth was that colour; it was a pure, cool and boundless azure that arched in celestial heights.

"Change from Jacqueline is like change from a vending machine," Blue said calmly. "Forced."

Aspen didn't know why Blue didn't like Jacqui - personally, he thought his chic, tousled executive and executioner was a little neurotic, but otherwise darling. "She's buying breakfast, isn't she?"

"The cost of breakfast can buy a man's life if you know where to look." A simple, factual statement. "Don't be so naïve, Martin. We're vampires. We may need to eat - though you certainly don't-"

Aspen scowled. He liked the gnawing feeling hunger - human hunger, as he thought of it, not bloodlust - gave him. It was something he had control over, the one piece of power he still held over a life that had slid like wet soap from his hands.

"-but not often. Breakfast? Look this gift horse in the mouth - it may be wooden, hollow and Trojan."

Aspen shrugged off the disdainful words, not entirely sure what a Trojan was. He was proud to think he could call Blue a friend. All right, a friend who had let him get shot - and shot him once or twice - not someone he really liked, but he had earned Blue's respect and how many people could say that?

Well, one other sprang to mind. "How did Chatoya Irkil and Jacqui get on?" he said slyly.

"Loathe at first sight."

Aspen sniggered. He had thought they might not see eye to eye. "Are you done messing with Chatoya now?" No answer, but Aspen pressed on, waving his hands agitatedly. "Please, leave her alone. She's good, Blue, like you and me and Therese aren't."

The stare deepened and unhurriedly froze, and Aspen felt a nauseous fear rise in his stomach.

"Yes."

Aspen found himself walking faster, backing away.

"She is good, isn't she?" Blue purred, the cobalt of his hair stark against his pale skin, the pits of his eyes deep-set and hooded. "She tries to do what's right, and she thinks the world is nice. She's chasing rainbows and hunting shadows. And she's a fool." The faintest of wicked smiles touched Blue and lit him up like sunlight leaping through sprays of water. "She's a part of me, and I can't kill her. But I can destroy her. I can be rid of her, and I will be."

He stopped. And Aspen's heart, which had been sprinting from this horror, slammed hard to a standstill. The hairs on his arms were raised, he noticed with a start, and despite the cooling breeze, he was sweating.

"Hungry?" the lamia enquired, and something of the panther rolled about his voice.

Aspen blinked dumbly, then followed Blue's careless wave to the Blood-Rose Café.

"Just about," he muttered.

Please, he thought, let Chatoya Irkil be stronger than you. I don't want to see her end like all the others.

X - X - X - X - X

Jacqui was waiting inside, the sole customer, and her blond-tipped hair sparkled with pretty clips that made her appear more feminine than usual. She was mulling over a sheaf of papers, and Aspen glimpsed just enough of them to know it was the same report he had scanned a day or two ago. It was a pair of their most interesting assassins, Vaje Chusson and Faith Tacarnan, a werewolf and witch who had a tendency to kill anything that got in their way. Both bitter, though he only knew it was because they had lost people close to them. Aspen wondered if he would be that way if Tam died.

A shudder convulsed him. No, safest not to wonder. This was not his world for much longer, it would be Chatoya's. And deep in his heart, he prayed she could make it better.

"_Les saluads_," she said, tapping the papers before switching back to English. "Morons! They're out of control, both of them. They had to steal that wretched painting - a Picasso, and they've probably torn it, the philistines! - and the vermin police will be turning the world upside down to find that."

"Never mind the six human bystanders they slaughtered," he pointed out, pulling up a chair. Blue had wandered off to order some food, and Aspen mentally called a hasty request for coffee.

Her eyes, a sludgy brown mingled with pine-green, barely registered the fact. "Yes, yes - what is it you say, collateral damage? But the art, Aspen, that's worth more than both their worthless lives together. Chusson and Tacarnan are running wild." Then her smile flashed, melting and bright. "Ah, but enough of the bad news. I have some good news for you."

"It's about time we heard some," he said wryly, though slightly puzzled at her wide smile. "Do tell."

_Something's up_, Blue announced sharply into his head. Aspen winced - it was like being doused in snake venom. _The vermin who owns this place - Jacqueline's influencing him._

"Oh, you know I've always been one for show rather than tell," Jacqui purred, and the first chords of anxiety played a riff up Aspen's spine.

_Blue..._

But Blue had fallen silent, and his mind had slammed shut like a sphere of diamond. No way in, no way out. Smooth impassivity on his face - except for his eyes which were a shifting, uncanny gold. Startled?

Aspen turned around to see what the vampire was looking at.

And then he was on his feet, one hand sending Jacqui's coffee crashing to the floor. The high smash of porcelain, the splash of liquid meeting lino, and the dizzying sense of falling, falling...

_Jacqui,_ his mind chanted. _Jacqui, how could you, how could you, oh please, nononononono..._

The man who stood there was nothing abnormal. Distinguished, elegant, kingly even. Silver haired, he had the same hawkish features as Aspen himself possessed, but somehow sharper and more aged; the eyes were a kaleidoscope of colour that shifted like his pretences, and crueller than anything Aspen had seen.

He could feel time drop away from him like shedding a cloak, feel the strength he thought he had crumble and flake and leave him naked, defenceless against this - this thing.

And Laburnum Martin saw the trembling, paralysing terror rip open in that lamia boy, saw the tremors begin, saw the boy shake his head again and again and again.

"Hello son," he whispered. "Did you miss me?"

_I've had the poison leak under my skin  
And it corroded my heart away  
Cut away...  
Dark night of my soul._


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Sorry this has taken a while, and my thanks to the delightful divine deities of you who commented last time round. Thanks to:

**Meg, Carina, Mandy, Cliodhna, Ky, Stacy, Sianna, Dark Princess, DLJewel, Amber, Werepanther, IC Dragons, Lotty, Midnight Haze, Kendal, Dark Fortuna, Queen Kat, Mal, Winnie, Tough Fluff, **and last but by no means least, the fantastic **OnKloudNyne. ** I loved hearing what you thought.

Comments are much loved and adored. I'd appreciate anything you have to say.

The lyrics come from Blondie's _One Way or Another _(Album: Parallel Lines).  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Seventeen**

_One way or another  
I'm gonna find you  
I'm gonna get you, get you, get you_

Some things were very simple. One touch, one smile, one word could pull someone back from an abyss.

For Blue Malefici, things had always been simple. There were no difficult decisions - weigh a life against a cheque, and if neither held any value, where was the difficulty? His childhood had been empty of decisions - he had been not a person but a thing to most of his family, bar his stupid, naive brother. His life had no worth to them, and theirs none to him.

There were few people who ever left their stamp on his soul. Few who left trails through the sands of his mind, fewer who he regarded with anything other than disdain and a detached interest for their whims and ways. Almost none who sprang from the same bloodline.

None except for these. Aspen Martin. Laburnum Martin. Father and son, priest and prayer, tormentor and tormented, adversary and ally. Some things were very simple.

One touch, one smile, one word could hurl someone into the dark.

One touch, one smile, one word could be a net to catch them-

That wasn't his thought. The blue eyes widened slightly, indefinably in that instant, though his expression altered not a whit. This was becoming, frankly, rather irritating.

_You again?_ he inquired.

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar liked to think he lived lightly, carefree and wild, that he could leave them all any time he wanted.

But as he stared at Chatoya, cradled in his arms, he knew it to be a lie. Her skin was too cool for the autumn's lingering heat, her pulse drawing away like the tide. Her open eyes stared beyond him into an elsewhere that shifted her features from confusion into an expression he knew too well - an expression he had seen too often. Watchful, and distant, and a little amused too.

It was Blue's and it was monstrous on Chatoya.

_Talk to me,_ he shouted at her mind, but it was as though he tried to shoot at smoke; nothing, only half-faded fragments of words and broken, bright images that made no sense to him at all. _Toya!_

A shard of a sentence through the mist. "...you miss me, son?"

The voice was familiar, but Cougar didn't have time to take a stroll down Memory Lane. He didn't know what was happening with Toya, he didn't know what was wrong or where she had gone. It was as if her soul had floated from her body – but it was still connected to her, or she'd be dead.

Damn. Contact. That was it. He needed contact.

The lamia exhaled slowly, staring at her still face. It was odd, but somehow, she was the opposite of everything he had ever chased. There was no beauty in her face, but there was a serenity that Cougar had to admit he had spent too long searching for, and not yet found.

She was going to murder him. Horribly. Loudly. Maybe using a few tips from Blue.

Fine, she could do that, but she'd be alive to kill him.

He brushed aside her black hair, glossy and feather-light, the ends tickling his palm, and wrestled with his conscience. The veins on her neck were peacock blue, a map towards her mind.

Just get it over with, he ordered himself. It's not like you've not bitten her before. And she didn't mind then.

Yes, but she'd consented. And the worst thing was that he knew her blood would be every bit as sweet, and perhaps all the better for being taken stealthily. The vampire in him wanted the conquest, wanted this helplessness, to see a life spread before him in submission.

But he wasn't the predator he had been. That boy was gone - he'd died somewhere on the long run to Ryars Valley, maybe parched in the desert, maybe shot down by his own family. Who knew?

He took a breath, and leaned closer. Her skin smelled like strawberries, like the soft subtle scent she had used yesterday - strawberries and blood, and it was overwhelming. A tingle in his teeth, the dull ache that promised satiation.

Her skin was cool under his mouth, and her blood intensely powerful - misty as her mind, which he reached for-

Yes. There.

X - X - X - X - X

The words recalled her. She was Chatoya Irkil - and this, this was Blue's mind. _Me again,_ she confirmed flatly.

She could see through his eyes - his amazingly sharp eyes, as if her own vision had been split by a crystal into a multitude of rainbows. It felt distinctly strange - she saw as he saw, and heard as he heard, but it came as if through a cocoon, as though she was in some small cage in a corner of his mind. Bars of shadows, and a lock of will.

_Out._

_No. I don't know why you called me here-_

His mind-voice was texture as well as sound; opaque ice that neared burned her. Yet there was a curious roughness to it, and vibration that she had heard before, somewhere... _I didn't. I need you like I need a stake in the heart. _

Emotion. There was a subtle, dangerous emotion burning under those words and it was-

_You're angry!_ she said, astonished. _That's what it is._

Not angry. Beyond that. Furious, a tightly leashed wrath that would not escape by word or deed - and had flown down the soulmate connection. To her. But...why?

And she turned her attention to the scene in front of her, and it hit her like a fist.

Aspen Martin was in stark and ghastly profile before her, recoiling, stumbling back blindly with his lips slack and his face ashen. He trod through smashed coffee, not even noticing the pottery shards that crunched under his feet.

He wasn't saying anything, but Chatoya could hear the quiet high whimpering escaping him.

Who was this man who terrified him so? Although he had a disturbing resemblance to Aspen, the delighted, cold cast of his face chilled her.

"You've behaved very badly," he murmured in a voice that was deep and articulated. Someone used to rhetoric, used to shaping words into weapons. "You must repent, my son."

Aspen shook his head frantically, scuttling further back. The man followed, his steps easy and almost loping; his hungry eyes were brighter than the silver cross which hung around his neck - a crucifix-

A flash of blinding white light seared her mind. She gasped, strange pain raking across her soul, reverberating through her like discordant arpeggios crashing along a piano

_He's fond of his crucifix._ So level, Blue's voice, and beyond cold; this was the empty frozen core of a black hole, devouring all around it, leaving only shadows and space. _Such a...visual symbol, isn't it? The ultimate suffering, he calls it, the ultimate penance._

A memory he hadn't meant her to glimpse leapt like a silvery trout to the surface.

This man again - who was he? - talking with another, a tall dark haired man who had Cougar's hair and Cougar's build and Cougar's face, though this one was not half so dear. His hands caressed the crucifix - and they both seemed so tall, so tall as she looked up at them...

"The ultimate crime," he told Cougar's father, in that distant past that was nearly tangible, a piercing stare fixing her - pinning the child that must have been Blue. "Doesn't it deserve the ultimate penance? This boy, he is not right - he is unnatural...evil."

Beneath what was spoken aloud were words sent on a wave of triumph to Blue alone. _I'll see you nailed, demon._

And he had.

An onslaught of images, so many and so myriad that she couldn't comprehend what each meant. Few were Blue's - thoughts of others that he had stolen when they were unaware, inwardly dying in the prison of their weakness. Too many people, too much fear and vulnerability and revulsion; all the more terrible because it came from people who should never have known any of those emotions.

For a moment, the feelings threatened to overwhelm her.

Yes. Blue was angry - and troubled? She'd not have believed it if she couldn't feel it like a crown of thorns.

_Stop him,_ she pleaded. _Please, Blue - I know you don't like him, I know he scares you-_

_That, witch of mine, is neither the problem nor the issue. I don't run from what I fear. I certainly don't let live what I detest. If I had all the power this life had to offer - had I drained the very blood of the universe's heart - nothing would change._

Trying to catch his thoughts was like searching for a snowflake in a blizzard, shrouded and blinded by the sheer power that whirled about his head.

_I thought Aspen was your friend,_ she said, unable to bar the bitterness from her words. _But then - I know how little you value friendship._

_You know nothing._ The words were dropped like tomes slamming shut.

_Look at him!_ she snapped, and felt Blue's attention turn from her to Aspen.

The lamia was backed against a wall now, and his eyes were wide, shivering like glass in a gale. Tears shone on his cheeks. There were a thousand objects he could have used as a weapon, but it was easy to see that there was no fight in him, nothing but a dreadful broken terror.

And the man, with his sleek silver hair and his handsome, smiling face, made every step slower and smaller, controlling Aspen like a puppet - a shift of his hands here, a tug there, and he could have made that boy dance to his own death. And he would.

She saw it in those ever-changing eyes. He would.

_Do something!_ she screamed, and her mind seemed to fill with red-orange anger, hurling heat and dust and spitting sparks at him. _Do something, or I will!_

_I can't, you fool._ Cutting, snarling rage - but not all directed at her. _Oh, we vampires may be known for our love of vengeance, but he knows it too. We've been witched, witched by your foul blighted kind. None of us can harm him - not Aspen, not Therese, not Cougar, not any of my brothers and sisters - and certainly not I. Why do you think we left him alive? Residual affection? A souvenir?_

_I..._

_He's nailed us, witch of mine, and we are all helpless._

Her words were stolen, hurled into oblivion. The truth of it resounded in her mind.

_Goddess..._ she breathed, trying to gather her frayed thoughts.

_There is none._ The thought flicked out like a whip. _Better to believe in yourself._

Yes - there, there was leverage to use against him. _Well, let me tell you something, Blue Malefici. I called you a monster, and I was right. But that man - he's more than a monster. And if you have any belief left at all, you'll get up there, and you'll divert him. Because you can't kill him...but I can._

Silence: and then his laughter rippled through her head, terribly amused, and just a little sardonic. _You? You couldn't kill me. What chance do you stand against that?_

_More than you._ She paused, and then flung the next words at him, flung his own words in his face and prayed the lie would slide by unnoticed. _Better to believe in yourself. I believe I can kill him. Do you believe you can face him?_

_Playing tricks - you're improving, Chatoya Irkil. Oh yes...you're improving. I'll even concede you this one._ Yet there was no note of surrender in his voice, only - oddly - satisfaction.

Then she was unceremoniously thrust aside, into the icy corners of his mind. For a brief instant, she hovered, waiting to see if he would keep his promise, yet not wishing him to know that she would not kill - hurt, yes, but not kill - waiting, lingering and-

She was twisted up into the arms of some almighty fiery stream, and dragged from his thoughts.

X - X - X - X - X

"Guilty," Iager repeated softly, and dredged up a smile he didn't feel. "I could kill you, you realise."

Thom shrugged. There was no humour to the thin mouth, no warmth in the pale eyes, blue as dying skies and forget-me-nots. "I'd come back. I've got an unlimited pass to life. And I don't think you would."

"Oh?" he drawled, and resettled himself on the bench, trying to affect indolence. Once, it had been so easy not to care, and pretend he did. Now, so difficult to pretend not to care when he did. "Why not?"

"You'd have done it by now," Thom pointed out. "So - where is Sean?"

Iager grinned tiredly. "Off in Ecuador. Enjoying his gap year. Very much alive and kicking, apparently."

His hostility didn't fade, but instead seemed to intensify. "Why him? How did you even know about him - I can't believe you'd track down every member of my family and go to all the trouble of writing to my kid sis-"

His voice wilted as he twigged. Thom groaned and his eyes fell shut.

"I'll kill her," he said fervently. "I'm going to roast her alive."

Iager was tempted to offer a recipe for stuffing, and ask if he could sauté her personally, but wisely held his tongue.

"I suppose she's been selling you information," Thom snapped. "And which one do you work for? Not Nightfire, I'd guess. Pursang, is it? K'Shaia? Which of them sent you?"

"Actually...your friend Zara's fiancé did," Iager informed him, wariness bordering his tones.

A disbelieving stare was all his response. "Dark? But why would he want to kill..." He lifted his chin up, glowering at Iager from behind the thin wire glasses. "You are here to kill Chatoya, aren't you?"

"What?" Well, that explained the antagonism at least. "No! She's a nice girl, and she may be Malefici's soulmate, but I don't want to kill her!"

The human looked just as perplexed as Iager felt. "Well, why are you here? It's not to pick bloody daisies, that's for certain!"

"Dark wants information. On Malefici - that's all. We've heard there's some big shake up going on in the Furies-"

The human spread his hands, frustration raw in his gesture. "What have Greek legends got to do with anything?"

"Nightfire, K'Shaia and Pursang – they're known as the Furies." It was an apt name. They were as bloodthirsty and cruel as the original legends. "There's something happening - and we'd like to know what, because when two thousand homicidal maniacs start getting edgy, it's time to put the crash helmets on."

Thom even smiled a little, grim though it was. "I can understand that. Then...who are you?"

Iager hesitated. He didn't want anyone to know that, not here. This was his home - his paradise, his sanctum. Everything that he had been was tied into here, and everything he had become lolled in the sway of those shimmering lake waters.

Ryar's absence pervaded everything. He no longer slept, but slept alone. He did not walk without feeling the painful silence where her light steps would once had fallen. Each person he passed was a face that had not her sweetness, or her devotion or in the end, her strength. He no longer lived, but lived without her, and scarce lived at all.

Better to remain unknown, and keep the riddles of his heart caged.

"A dragon. A good one," he said finally, leaving the ambiguity unhealed. "That's all anyone needs to know."

Thom was silent for a long time, and only the whistle of the breeze and the slapping of the mere filled the air. "I think I believe you," he announced finally. "But I don't trust you, and if you're lying to me-"

"I know - you'll kill me."

Thom gave him a frankly startled look. "No I won't. I'll make sure someone more fireproof kills you. Believe that."

Iager did.

X - X - X - X - X

"Oh..." Chatoya stirred in his arms, and Cougar hastily lifted his head, aware of just how much trouble he was about to be in. Her blood, strong as death and desire, was damp on his lips.

"Hey." Her eyes focused on him, dark and soft as moss. "Um...I think I should explain..."

Then her voice shot up an octave, grating on his ears. "Goddess! I, I, I - let me up, Cougar!" Her hands pushed at him, and bemused, he obeyed. She didn't sound angry, more...alarmed.

"Toya?" She was running to the door. "Where are you going?"

"Not now, later!" she threw back, then paused and touched her neck. Blood stained her fingers. She pointed at him, hand trembling. "We are going to discuss this," he was told in a taut tone that brooked no argument. "Later."

And then he was left sitting on the couch as the door slammed, not entirely sure what on earth had just happened.

X - X - X - X - X

There was a knot in Jacqui's stomach that gyrated like a snarled-up snake. This was not what she had thought.

She had moved the meeting - it should have been tomorrow - why couldn't it have been tomorrow, which never came? She had been too impatient, wanting with a gloating glee to see Aspen vanquished.

Yes, she had thought he might be scared - after all, he rarely spoke of his family, and when he did, always with a fevered, fearful air. But he was not afraid now. He was beyond that; whatever had held him together during their long acquaintance had vanished, and he was falling into shattered pieces before her eyes.

She didn't like him. But no one deserved that.

Well, it's done, she told herself angrily, ripping the files in front of her into strips over and over until only confetti was left. You did this, and now you can live with it, like you've lived with everything else.

And there was Aspen - his child's eyes with all their secrets spilling out so the world could see, the anguish, the fear, the hopeless and useless hate, there was Aspen with nowhere to go. His back was to the wall and as Laburnum Martin drew ever closer, the lamia boy's bones seemed to turn to slush as he slid down and buried his blond-streaked head in his knees to block out the sight.

A victorious, empty smile was radiant on Bernie's face, and Jacqui could only hate him and hate herself, herself for being what she was, and doing what she had done - and would do again, because that was who she was. She regretted every malevolent act afterwards, but she didn't, wouldn't stop.

And then Blue stepped forward, his pupils two endless caverns.

"Get thee behind me, asshole," he purred, and black fire nestled about his body like a tame panther.

Bernie spun, disbelief sculpted on every inch of his fanatic's face, his pale stern fanatic's face. "You..." he hissed. "You have no power over me. Have you forgotten that so easily?"

Blue tilted his cobalt head on one side, and an enigmatic smile appeared, serpentine and filled with a spite that had been fed blood and life and still needed more. "Things change, Laburnum. People change. Except you. Still stuck in your rut, still threatening those who won't and can't fight back."

"I shall cast your soul into the fiery pit of hell," Bernie snarled, and the determination - the faith - in those words made Jacqui's skin rise in goosebumps. In that second, she could believe that heaven and hell existed, though she knew neither did.

"I'll be sure to stock up on my Factor 50 then." Blue's eyes flashed - golden, pure gold, as if the fiery pits were already burning in his stare. "Next? Are you going to quote Revelations at me? Or some useless titbit of some equally useless prophet?"

Bernie mouthed, mottled red creeping up his neck. Not so elegant now, she thought. Not anything but a madman.

"For all your belief that you're holier than Swiss cheese," Blue continued, his arms crossed and his irreverent eyes spitting contempt. "You're nothing. Holy? You don't believe in any god. You believe you are one."

"Infidel!" Bernie's hand was clutching the crucifix. "Heretic!"

"Yes, yes," the lamia boy drawled, an angel of death in that still and self-assured stance. "We all know my church attendance of late has been disturbingly low, although my funeral attendance has been excellent."

"I should have killed you the moment I laid eyes on you!" the man snarled. "You're poison, just like your unnatural father was."

Fangs bared as Blue's smile widened. "My father, unnatural? Take a good look in the mirror, Laburnum, and if it doesn't shatter, maybe you'll see what would make anyone want to be blind."

"You are an abomination!" His hands made the sign of the cross, left to right, head to stomach.

"I am more than you will ever be," Blue declared. "And speaking of religious advice, here's one for you."

His eyes were so bright Jacqui couldn't look at him, but only sit riveted, waiting.

The door flew open, and she was stunned, destroyed - horrified - to see Chatoya Irkil run in. She halted, her face flushed and almost panicked - but still taking in the scene with a single glance at Aspen, in that pathetic heap on the floor, at Blue, crueller and more formidable than he had ever been - at this man, this snarling, wheedling thing of man.

Bernie had heard the swish of the door at Chatoya Irkil's entrance, and faced her - the confidence oozing back onto his features as he saw her.

And then she spoke, her voice clear and low, and unforgiving as the night itself, with only the faintest of tremors to it.

"I know what you have done."

Witchfire leapt to her hands - and then Blue stared at her, and their eyes met. Something seemed to pass between them...and the witchfire slowly turned the oily curling black of dragonfire.

Bernie's eyes widened, and he took a step back. And another as the fire leapt, and danced, and strained towards him.

Blue's whisper sliced the air. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Fire exploded, and Jacqui had to shield her eyes against the blinding surge of light.

When she opened them, a pool of melted silver was cooling on the floor, and the only sound was Aspen's soft, helpless whimpering.

_One way or another  
I'm gonna win you  
I'll get you - I'll get you._


	19. Chapter Eighteen

I hope you all had a good new year (I know I did.) and got busy on the resolutions front :-) Thanks to all of you who reviewed, and much love!

Thank you **Dianna, OnKloudNyne, Midnight Haze, Mandy, Eleyne, Werepanther, Sianna Keyna, Blaze Baelfire, Water Soul, DLJewel, S.T.A.R.S. member, Baby Loca, Lotty, Meg, Danel, Askani, IC Dragons, Cynical Leaf, Dark Fortuna, Mal, Stacy, Queen Kat, **and finally, the resplendent **Rain**.

Comments are much loved and adored ;-) Please tell me what you think, comments or crits - all are worshipped!  
The lyrics come from _All I Want_ by Toad The Wet Sprocket (Album: Fear).  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Eighteen**

_Nothing's so loud as hearing when we lie  
The truth is not kind,  
And you've said neither am I_

Chatoya stared at her own hands, unable to believe the sheer power that had swarmed through her like a plague of locusts, hot and hungry and furious. Traces of it still loitered in her body, in her bones.

"You used me," she said finally, breaking the silence that had been almost sacred. She dared look up then, and meet the blue, blue eyes that were fathomless beyond mere mortal measurement. "You-"

"-weren't intending to kill him." Blue cut her off. He didn't move from where he leant against the counter she worked behind every weekend. "For all your fine words and righteous anger, you're no killer."

"I am now!" she snapped.

Sooty eyelashes dropped to mask his gaze, but she could still feel how intolerably amused he was. "You're taking it better than I expected. Perhaps you're not so terribly moral as you seem."

For a blink, she was tempted to drag that power right out of his soul and hurl it at him. But she had not used it; she had been used. Power like that had a will of its own, and maybe someone as contrary as Blue could cope, but not her. Before it had arrowed towards that man, she'd thought it might consume her.

But she thrust away that unsavoury notion to give her attention to the scene before her.

And oh, Goddess. Oh...

Aspen wasn't making any sound now; he only had his head buried in his hands, knees drawn up to meet his trembling knuckles. It broke her heart to see the tremors rattling through his frame.

Her feet moved of their own accord, and she knelt down by him and did what was most instinctive to her; she just put her arms around Aspen, the way she would a child.

He hit her.

It was a wild, impulsive reaction, getting her away from him as fast as he could, but it knocked her back, and knocked her breath clean away. Her vision greyed out for a few agonising seconds, but not before she caught a glimpse of his face.

And gods, if any existed, at the blank unseeing terror in his eyes, she could only forgive him and pity him.

Hell, she muttered silently in her head, biting her tongue to try and block out the pain in her jaw. Goddess, goddess, goddess, that hurt. Her teeth felt like they'd fall out if she dared speak, and coppery, warm blood flooded her mouth.

_Can you hear me?_ she demanded loudly.

_Like a convoy of agitated vultures._ Blue's disdain was vibrant in her head, prickly as holly. _Correct me if I'm wrong, though you won't need to, but this vastly irritating link seems to be growing stronger._

How true - it hadn't even needed focus to speak to him. But it didn't matter. _Get hold of Tamara Slone._

_Why? You think she can fix him with a kiss and the oh-so magical soulmate principle? You might as well try and stop a volcano with a bucket of water. He's broken, Chatoya Irkil, it's that simple, and I doubt there's anything on earth that will take that away._

She stared at Aspen's bowed head before her, his legs bunched up tight. There were on his arms that she had never noticed; they only showed now because he was icy-pale all over, as though he'd slid through the surface of an arctic lake and couldn't find his way out again.

_No, but - it has to start somewhere. I can't just leave him!_

_Compassion will ruin you, witch of mine. You want to see the good in everything and everyone. There's no good in this situation. There's no saving grace, except that Laburnum Martin got to taste the poison he dealt out for one second._

That couldn't be true. She leaned forward again, gathering herself to move back, and touched Aspen's arm very cautiously. "Please don't hit me again," she muttered under her breath.

This time the blow flattened her to the floor, and incredible pain lanced up her back. Chatoya stared at the ceiling, dimly aware of running feet and the high jingle of the bells on the door as someone shot out.

I don't think I'm ever going to move again.

The sheer strength! She hadn't even felt the impact, but a nasty numbness spread across her shoulder, and something creaked unpleasantly as she tried to sit up.

"You're a fool, witch of mine." Blue didn't help her. He stood over her, eyes flashing with a dark, vicious mirth. "But not quite as much of a fool as you, Jacqueline."

As she struggled up, Chatoya blinked, bemused by the rapacious delight she heard. Yes, the vampire girl was staring almost blankly at the pair of them. A heap of torn paper sat in front of her, and an unusual flush tinged her oval face. There was...something...

Something in Blue's mind, something that she had seen like a reflection in a broken mirror...

She was on her feet before her mind quite connected, and had to clutch onto the nearest table to keep upright, hair tumbling madly round her face. "You hired those wolves!" Yes, that was it, chiming in her head like the final note of a symphony. "To keep me from Pursang. And you...you arranged this."

Jacqui's chin thrust out defiantly, despite the downright surprise in her voice. "And what if I did?"

"You evil, conniving..." Chatoya let off a string of words which she felt managed to convey effectively her rage, pain, and general state of mind.

The girl pushed her chair back, scraping it along the floor. "You two really are soulmates," she announced flatly. "She's certainly got your gift for words."

"Hasn't she just?" Blue purred, aglow with a secret satisfaction, a shadow lurking in her mind. "Here's your choice, Chatoya Irkil. Do you want to have Pursang - or do you want her to?"

You bastard, she thought with grudging respect. She had to hand it to Blue, or he'd take it anyway. You manipulative little-

_Ah, ah!_ he interposed coolly. _Answer first. You may chastise me later. The frying pan or the fire?_

She hoped with all her outraged heart he could hear the fury in her voice. "It's mine."

A hiss from Jacqui. The gold rim about Blue's eyes swelled a little - but that was all the reaction he gave her.

"And as my first act..." She let go of the table, fixing her best imitation of Cougar's death-stare on Jacqui, and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in her side and back. "You're fired. Preferably in a kiln at about three hundred degrees."

"I'm...what?" the Monaco girl whispered. Her hands dangled uselessly at her side. Instead of the petulance, the denial, the fury Chatoya had expected, the words seemed to have emptied her. "But - you can't."

"Read my lips." She glanced sideways at Blue, and nearly added she'd produce a translation for him if he was having trouble, but restrained herself. Cheap shots were his forte, not hers. "Get out."

The diamante clips sparkled as Jacqui shook her head slowly. "But where will I go? What will I do? Pursang's, it's all I've got. It's all I am."

A pang of sympathy struck her. What a terrible thing for anyone to say. But that didn't alter what she had done, and maybe what she would do if she could.

"Things are about to change," Chatoya said, and she recalled some of those other fleeting thoughts she had grasped in Blue's mind. Oh yes, she had seen enough to guess what Blue intended, even in those few seconds before he locked all his thoughts into black and hellish secrecy. "Why don't you be the first one?"

"I..."

"Just go," she said tiredly. "Don't argue. You don't want to see me angry."

Jacqui cast an almost awed glance at her - then it flicked to her hands. "I already have," she said, and left. The silence was almost as heavy as the weight she now carried on her shoulders.

I should have left it. I shouldn't have done this.

But I couldn't have stood by and done nothing.

"Don't say it," she said flatly.

Blue arched one dark eyebrow, and shrugged. There was a feline laziness to the way he stretched his legs, and settled back against the counter. "Some things need no words."

Chatoya stayed standing despite the pain in her back. She would pay dearly for this later. "And some do. How dare you, how goddamn dare you use me like that?"

"Practice."

"You made me a weapon." Each word was spat out - the thought was bitter as raw coffee in her mouth.

"I can think of better things to make you, I'll agree." His voice arched with midnight promise. And then he glided forward until he was right in front of her, filling up her vision. "Fine. I used you. I wanted him dead. He is. I suppose I owe you."

The memory of that brilliant light was engraved on her thoughts. "I don't just blow people to pieces."

"You can blow me to pieces any time you want, witch of mine." A vibration ran low and suggestive in his voice, and when he took her hand, turning it over in his own, it trailed through his touch too, disturbing her more than it should have. The scratches still raked her skin, and she was ready to jolt back.

But he only ran his fingertips very gently, feather-light, along the cuts. Even that caused pain, but pain of a different sort; pain that held only a distant threat of more pain, disguised under a touch that seemed to imply contact of a different and far less innocent nature.

"Blood," he murmured.

An adder seemed to turn just beneath her ribs as he lifted her hand, his touch warm and smooth.

"Power."

To her shock, he kissed the inside of her wrist, where the veins met. And the traces of dragonfire in her blood were drained from her, drawn to the junction in the lodestream of her blood; she felt the hard imprint of his fangs against her skin, but he didn't bite her.

"But where," Blue continued, his voice a soft mass of shadows, "where's the reflection, witch of mine? You crept into my thoughts so very easily..."

"You thought of me." His touch was sliding idly over the palm of her hand, almost tickling. "Didn't you tell me once I was only a reflection of you? It's enough, Blue."

"Is it?"

His hand lashed suddenly, and there was a long shallow cut flaming on the edge of her palm. Chatoya snatched her hand away, sucking the wound to try and stop it bleeding, and considered giving him a hefty slap. But there was something in his stance which warned her he would be entirely ready for it.

"I'm thinking of you now, witch of mine," and there was something distinctly unholy sparkling in his eyes, startling as a scarlet-clad bride. "And nothing's happening."

She took her hand away from her mouth. "Yes it is. I'm annoyed."

"Hardly a cause for concern, or shall I call Nightfire and warn them I'm about to suffer an extreme bout of random sarcasm and scolding? By the way, you're dripping blood on the floor."

"Gods above, am I? Isn't it odd how that seems to happen whenever I run into you?"

Fangs shone softly in the light, and she realised his pupils had dilated, and he was breathing more deeply.

Of course, she thought sickly, he can smell my blood.

"In point of fact," Blue stated, and she clutched her hand close though it was pure madness to show fear. "I believe it was wolves who drew your blood last time. However...I won't deny causing you pain. It's certainly entertaining. And if you stopped running away, sweet Chatoya Irkil, maybe you'd learn to take the pleasure with the pain."

"Pleasure?" Angry eyes met unearthly ones. "Where's the pleasure in this?"

He tilted his head on one side. "It's in control, it's in not giving in to what you so very much desire."

"What's this, lessons to help me in hell?" Body hand-crafted by Harrods, she thought, looking at that dazzling and undeniably captivating face. Soul fed-exed by Satan.

Sparks jumped in his eyes, and he drew her wounded hand from her with easy strength, a strength that told her she surrendered or he broke the nearest convenient bone. "Or heaven. Take your pick, and your time."

He was blocking the soulmate connection again, in the easy way he had, but somehow...it wasn't quite working like it once had. No fire. No thoughts - but his feelings were vague shapes in her mind, like being in a dark room and bumping into the furniture occasionally.

"I'd rather take my leave," she said, but found herself being drawn closer as he tugged on her arm. Oh yes, here they were again, and here he was, doing what he wished, though she wasn't at all sure what that was.

There was no sound as he drew her hand up, and stared at the blood that was trickling down her hand. And then licked her hand, and made her jump so violently that she nearly fell over.

"What are you _doing_?"

That curious colour was in his eyes - beyond gold, a shimmering pearly hue, white tinged with all the colours of the spectrum. "Am I going to have to draw diagrams?" he drawled, and folded her fingers over her palm, his grasp loosely about her wrist. Something was...

She opened her hand. The cut was gone. "What did you...?"

Chatoya wasn't sure, but thought his grip might have tightened a fraction. "It's a little known fact, but it isn't only vampire blood that helps healing. And I do believe your mouth is bleeding. Shall I heal that too?"

"Shall I just bare my throat? Or would you rather I lie back and think of Pursang?"

"I'd rather you lie back and think of me," he drawled, eyebrows arching into that spiky azure hair, and Chatoya found herself almost enjoying throwing words back and forth. Words were easier than weapons with Blue, though sometimes they cut near as deep. Something had changed; something had swung her way. "But I'll take that as a no."

"I'm surprised," she said bitingly, tones as pitch-black as her hair. "I didn't think you knew what it meant."

"Sometimes no means yes. Sometimes yes means no. Sometimes you ignore both. Here's another lesson for you, Chatoya Irkil - don't listen to the words. Listen to the silence - what they don't say is far more important."

She leaned forward, and spread her hand over his throat. Yes, she understood.

We're more equal now - and you...you need me now you've manoeuvred me where you wanted. I saw that. And you know I saw it.

"Anyone would think you wanted me to survive."

"We both know I have a vested interest in keeping you alive." His pulse throbbed under her fingers, slow and even. "And let me give you your third lesson. Keep your friends away. They're levers for anyone with a modicum of intelligence. If you can't keep them away - what chance do you have with your enemies?"

Determination flashed on her face, taut in her mouth. "I'm managing fine with you."

"Are you?"

She ignored him. It was easier the more she tried it. "I need to get in touch with..." The words tasted odd on her lips, tasted like blood and fear. "...my people."

His eyelids hooded his eyes, for all the world like a cobra pretending to slumber. "I can help with that."

And I'll be watching for the knife in my back every step of the way, she thought grimly.

X - X - X - X - X

Aspen was blind.

He was deaf, and dumb, and blind all over again, and only a deep trembling fear ran through him.

_Did you miss me, son?_

He was deaf, and dumb, and blind, and tainted, and Tam wouldn't' want him, and couldn't have him, better that the fear should have him, or the pain should have him. Yes, the pain. That would block out the fear, and block out the world and block out the voice hissing

_Did you miss me, son?_

He didn't hear the car screech to a halt, or the driver that shouted at him, or even feel the sun blazing high above him. His world was ever dark and cold and bounded by stone walls that held soft whispers and empty hell. How stupid he had been to think it could ever be otherwise. How foolish of him to try and escape, how naive of him to think that he was ever anything but filthy and useless and wrong, wrong, wrong.

I'm all wrong, Aspen thought, and stumbled on, not caring where he went or what he became. He was right, he should have killed me when I was born. He was merciful to let me live, to let me breathe someone else's air.

I should be dead.

He knew somewhere that there had been fire - the divine saving fire he had so longed for all those years ago, wiping out the face that had haunted him longer than he could even remember. But the fire had come too late.

Where were you, he had wanted to scream at the witch whose name was a blur to him. Where were you thirteen years ago, when I was a person, when I was still real, where were you before I became this?

Where were you when I needed you?

He stopped, and fell onto the ground, and didn't care that it was cold and harsh and painful. What else did he deserve? He just curled up in the shady darkness, and curled up into that little stone world and cried very quietly.

X - X - X - X - X

Felicity left Cern with the Pack, smiling faintly as he elbowed Romulus out of the way to sit down and laze in the noisy, chattering circle. He'd not run off at all these past days, and even joined in a conversation and answered questions with more than two words. And she knew - she knew from the way his face would flicker round the Pack - that he missed his friends.

Flick dusted tiny leaves from her copper hair, and wavered over whether she should fetch one of his friends. As a surprise. Not one of the happy ones with soulmates. Maybe...mmm...that Cougar guy, though he was so unbearably obnoxious and would probably say the most inappropriate thing he could call to mind.

Or that Lisa chick. Cern always smiled when he talked about her, and his eyes were a little less sad. And Donna seemed to think well of her. Flick knew a lot of the Pack didn't like Donna, their erstwhile leader, because she wouldn't let them hunt any humans that came across their path, but she had her head screwed on right. Which was more than could be said for anyone who crossed her.

The Lisa girl, she decided, and cut through the wood. And she'd get some more eyeliner while she was in town. She kept running out, and it came off however she slathered it on.

She was near at the edge when she caught the sound.

It wasn't loud, and it wasn't physical. Flick's mother had always said that she'd excel both her parents in mental strength and since she'd come here, she'd found she could always find prey faster than the Pack, and ease out of trouble before it began.

And it sounded like...

Her short nose wrinkled. Crying? Here? Plenty of pain, sure, but weren't no one in the Pack who went in for tears.

Damn me, she thought, and changed direction, walking along the edge as it became louder in her hearing. There was something very unnerving about the sound; something utterly heartbroken, and almost childlike. Branches brushed at her face, and smudged her eyeliner further, and tore on her spiked collar, but she kept walking, thoroughly intrigued.

She kicked her way through the final few brambles in her way, and stared.

The boy was vaguely familiar, one of the Nightpeople who strolled round town. All hunched up, curled up in a foetal position with his hands over his face and pale as the little white powder she'd seen passed round her expensive friends.

How do I meet these people? Flick thought. She knew she should walk away right now. That boy was messed-up as all hell, especially if he was dumb enough to have a mental collapse near the ghost roads.

She should have walked away...but she sighed.

"Oh boy," she said aloud.

He sat up, and scrabbled backwards with his hands and feet, his eyes bigger than a shot faun's. Faun's eyes, fox's face, she thought, looking at the narrow mouth, slack with fear, and the long nose, and the pointed chin. Curiously delicate, and - this unnerved her most - utterly petrified.

"Hey, I know I haven't topped up the make-up this morning," she announced, not moving, "but I didn't think it was that bad."

He was quivering all over, and still crying, though he scarcely seemed to notice. He reminded her of was the baby rabbit she had almost devoured last night - but instead, let go. Only to see Romulus snap it up in his jaws.

"You picked a pretty spot to sit in, boy." She pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Great ice-breaker, and besides, she needed something to relax her a little. He was spooking her. "You want one?"

A little rationality crept in his eyes. Better, Flick thought, though I wish those tears would stop. It's like no one's home, but the grief's still flooding out.

She threw the packet, but he didn't catch it. No reaction at all, just looking at - or was it through? - her. Not good. People either tried to catch what you threw, or they flinched back. The smoke was a comfort in her throat and chest.

"I'm thinking I know you," she said, her grey eyes sleet-soft. "Seen you round town, I reckon. Vampire, right?"

Nothing.

"You want me to guess your name, or do I get a little help?"

Still nothing. Christ, Flick thought, it's like someone's got inside that cute head and smashed him to bits with a mallet.

"Boy," she said gently. "You aren't in good shape. Please...help me out here. I'm real worried about you, and if I don't get a response, I'm going to just knock you out and take you back home with me, 'cause I'm not leaving you out here."

Blankness. Not a blink. He hadn't blinked at all since she came in.

"I'm sorry," she told him, and prepared to smash through whatever shields this vampire might have. But then...she realised. No shields. Nothing.

What a mess. What a poor godforsaken mess. Why don't you put up a fight, boy?

An image grabbed her - dark, thorny, sending a gut-deep fear through her that she thrust away at once as a reflex. Surely no one could feel that and stay sane.

And she realised that maybe knocking him out would only be a mercy.

I know what mercy is, Flick reflected, and then felt something cool slide down her cheek. Oh god, am I crying for him? Yeah, I know mercy. It's when it stops hurting.

And she thought that when she knocked him out, there was relief in that tormented mind.

X - X - X - X - X

It was late when Chatoya got in, dazed by the brief resume and long phone calls she had just been subjected to. It had been strange. She had rung the four people Blue had assured her were the first below her in the hierarchy and everyone had given her the same reaction.

"You're a bloody what?" had been the reaction of Lance Stormshot, his lazy Australian drawl startled into a shout. "You're pulling my leg!"

"Very funny," the laughing witch in Washington had said. "Now come on, Malefici, get your meal off the line and put Martin on."

The vampire in London had nearly dropped dead at her announcement that he could damn well fly to Ryars Valley and see for himself, just like the rest.

And as for Salvaje Chusson, who had just received unexpected promotion - he had snarled a very unwilling agreement and hung up with a distinct slam.

Blue had dryly assured them that he was not pulling any limb, nor did he have his calendar open at April the first, and that yes, she had managed to polish off Aspen in single combat. After several minutes of sheer disbelief, they had all - reluctantly - agreed to present themselves in a few days.

Blue hadn't said a word as she hung up the last call, but watched her with a slender, inscrutable smile, and gestured her out. He was planning something, sure as the sky stayed up, and she didn't want to know what it was.

And the buzzing was back. The buzzing that slowly turned into sounds, and then words as she moved further from his home. But it was ignorable, and that was exactly what she did.

And now she stood, hand on the doorhandle of Thom's house. There would be words with Cougar. She didn't know how on earth to start, though she had a good idea of how to finish, and she needed to go home and talk to Lisa, and apologise to Tali, and sympathise with Jepar over his black eyes and-

As she stepped into the sitting room, it struck her that things weren't quite right.

There was Cougar - his hazel eyes flared with relief as she walked in, apparently in one piece. And Thom. And Jepar, looking like a lost raccoon, and Lisa? And Sean? And a very, very sullen Kirsty.

"What's going on?" she said, looking from one unexpectedly serious face to another.

"Good question," Thom muttered, with a glare at his younger sister. "Kirsty? Care to start?"

"Take a seat," Cougar advised, and flashed his teeth. "And you'd better get some popcorn too - this is going to be entertaining."

_And it won't matter now  
Whatever happens to me  
Though the air speaks of all we'll never be  
It won't trouble me_


	20. Chapter Nineteen

Much love and honey to the shooting stars of you who commented last time round! Thanks to:

**Izzy, Meg, Dark Princess, Sianna, Mandy, DLJewel, OnKloudNyne, Dianna, Midnight Haze, Carina, Booky, Eleyne, Danel, Jewel, Crimson Tears, Lotty, Dark Fortuna, Baloo, Rain, Queen Kat, Lavender12, Leopardess, Blaze Baelfire, **and the gorgeous **Greeneyes. **

I adore comments. They are one of life's great pleasure, right up with there with sunrises and light rain in summer, and fireworks, and sleeping kittens. So please, comment do, and I will be muchly thrilled! Criticism is welcomed, I know there are a helluva lot of improvements that need making!

The lyrics are from Paolo Nutini's _Last Request_ (Album: These Streets)

I hope you enjoy, and much love!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Nineteen**

_Oh, I've found, that I'm bound  
To wander down that one way road.  
And I realise all about your lies  
But I'm no wiser than the fool I was before_

"Who wants to start?" Thom said flatly. His eyes had were as hard and opaque as clouded crystal; Chatoya thought she had never seen the Old Soul so obviously furious.

"Gosh," Cougar Redfern said sardonically, as Chatoya settled herself next to him. "It's almost like playing a board game. Can I be Colonel Mustard? And I think it was that no-good conniving not-even-Irish bastard," a contemptuous flick of his fingers in Sean's direction, who scowled darkly, "in the past, with oh, about fifty thousand tons of dragon power."

"What?" Chatoya blinked; Cougar's mouth was hard and almost cruel, and it shot a cool bolt of fear straight through her heart. "What are you talking about?"

"It's true," Sean said, and in his manner, something was a little different, something-

His accent was gone. The voice was different; huskier, with just a hint of Eastern European sharpness to the consonants, and deep as an underground lake.

"You're...a dragon," she said slowly. "Really a dragon?"

"Horns and all," he murmured, and brushed aside the messy hair to show her the cluster of horns on his forehead.

No human boy had those, and now that she knew, his amber eyes were no longer so warm and welcoming; in them lay a depth that came from something beyond age, that came from seeing hurt and pain and rage beyond measure and mere mortal pretensions.

"Well," Jepar said dryly, stretching out his long legs, "you seem relatively sane. You don't have any bizarre fixations on any of us, do you? Or anything likely to turn our lives into a feature-length story?"

Sean - though no, that was wrong, what was his name? - raised an eyebrow. "Don't flatter yourself. You're really not my type."

Somehow it couldn't quite provide the reassurance she needed. He was a thief: of someone's body, and someone's voice, and someone else's open amber stare, a thief of someone else's emotions and relationships.

What he took was priceless and irreplaceable.

Her breath hissed in as the presence in her mind spread like a pool of ink, shining indigo and smothering her like liquid shadows.

_No,_ she said, and knew Blue Malefici heard her. The buzzing in her head had wilted under his presence - but then, it was only the humming hive of his thoughts heard distantly, and now, in the heart of who she was, he was overwhelming. _Not now_.

_Priceless?_ that lazy, laughing voice asked. _Something so great that it cannot be given a value - or something that has no value at all? Be careful how you use your words when the meaning is all in the listener's heart._

_Who are you to speak of hearts?_

_Who are you to put value on a life? Which of us is better qualified to judge?_

There was a flippancy to the words that didn't hide the force behind them. She had always believed your soulmate was your noonday sun, throwing your world into bright relief, and shortening your shadow. But Blue...Blue was an eclipse, blotting out all light and staining the world with darkness.

_Leave me alone!_

Something she couldn't interpret in his voice before that cool, blue-black venom left her. _Oh...I will, Chatoya Irkil. I will._

The exchange had taken a scant few seconds, unnoticed in the awkward silence that settled round the room, and Chatoya realised she had been staring absently at the four tight white scars that raked over Jepar's face, the legacy of the last dragon they had met.

"Who are you?" she shot at Sean, shattering the hush. "Why are you posing as Sean, and how did you get found out?"

Unease flickered on his face like lightning in a far-flung sky. "Who I am doesn't matter."

"Then who you were won't matter either," Cougar bit back, and Chatoya was shocked at the sheer ferocity in his gaze, bright and sharp. "I don't know what the hell it is, Toya, but it's not here for any good reason. In fact, it's here to kill you. After all - what better way to get rid of Blue?"

Her mouth fell open, and around the room, people sat bolt upright. All Jepar's languor disappeared as his bruised eyes open wide, and a long knife materialised in Lisa's hands.

"What?" she said in unison with the dragon.

"Actually, before you go into raging hysterics, apparently he's not." Thom gave Kirsty a little shake, adding cryptically, "Even my sister has more sense than that. He's one of Dark's minions."

The dragon drew himself up. "I'm no one's minion."

"Employee, then." The Old Soul's look said he didn't particularly care. "I rang up as soon as we got back, while Cougar and you were having a world-class glaring match, and Zara confirmed it." He grinned. "Dark didn't tell her, and from her voice, I get the impression she wasn't too pleased with him."

The rampant hostility in the room went down a few notches. Except for Cougar; Chatoya knew that stubborn expression, and it said he wouldn't believe it until he had proof. She could feel the tension in his long body, poised next to her, and perhaps normally she might have laid a hand on his arm, just to say what words would not, but she knew that under his lips, his teeth were stained with her blood, and their friendship was blemished by that betrayal.

"...said something about withholding conjugal rights from the poor guy for not telling her...but I'm getting off track. As she was so steamed with Dark, Zara did a bit of spying of her own, and found out who our dragon is and why he's here," Thom continued. "One Fireblade. Spying on Nightfire, Pursang and K'Shaia."

Jepar's breath hissed in. "What? No way! Fireblade's just a legend. My mother used to tell me bedtime stories about him..."

"Really?" Cougar said brusquely. "My father used to use him as a role model. Which tells me all I need to know."

The dragon lowered his head into his hands. And then the air was riddled with a series of creaks and screeches as his bones shifted. Chatoya pressed her lips together and tried not to listen.

He lifted his head.

There was silence. So this is you, she thought. This is all the truth you will give us, though for all we know, it's only another lie, another layer on a parcel that's no party game.

He had the caramel skin of someone who had spent their life is a baking, roiling world; and now she saw his eyes were the impossible orange of lava spat against a night sky, matching the hair that was striped like a tiger's fur, short and bristling. He wasn't tall as Cougar or Jepar, but there was an unnerving sinewy strength to him, his skin stretched tight over his bones.

This was something made to hunt.

"I don't go by that name," he said, and there was a bitter edge to the words. " It's Iager now. I'm not that person anymore."

"We don't know that." Lisa spoke for the first time, her words slow and measured, but no less forceful. Chatoya didn't dare look at her for fear of the condemnation she might be shown. "I've heard the stories too, and I know what you were. Working against assassins? I don't believe it. You are one."

Fireblade...oh, sweet Goddess. The tales resounded in her head, long and gruesome accounts her twin brother had told her with eyes aglow at the gore and the drama. Fireblade, who had been second-in-command to the last dragon King. Fireblade; the King's killer, slayer of witches, slayer of dragons, ever-thirsting. Fireblade, who had a sword that blazed against the smoke-streaked skies of that greatest of wars, hewing down all in his path. Fireblade, fled and thought dead, or lost, but gone either way.

Strange, she couldn't see that in the eyes of the boy who bit his lip at those words, as if they pained him. No, there was something - something so odd about his face that eluded her. Not Fireblade. Not the same monster, though perhaps a monster all the same.

A monster, for now then, who sought to unlock Nightfire's secrets. And Pursang's secrets - hers.

"I suppose you know about me and Blue, then," she said into the silence. "Reject of my affections and all."

There was no apology in those hellfire eyes. Gods, how could she ever have thought him human? "I know. And I'll admit, I was cultivating your company in the hope you could tell me something. But I was not, not going to kill you. If I was, I could have done it by now." He smiled, and a dimple flickered in one cheek. "And besides, I did enjoy your company."

"Oh, how nice of you," she said acidly. "I'm glad my back didn't hurt your knife."

The caged fire in his eyes seemed to dim a little. "No knives here, Chatoya. If you think I'd hurt you, maybe you should be careful which way you turn your back. Same goes for all of you."

"I want to know just how you got here," Jepar said thoughtfully. "You can't tell me that Dark managed to uncover the convenient excuse of Sean on his own - Zara wouldn't have known, and there's no way Thom helped you - so how?"

The dragon didn't answer, but Thom did.

The Old Soul gave his little sister a shake. "Madam here has been playing games with all of us," he said grimly. "I doubt you know, but she's been making a little money on the side by a time-honoured method."

Cougar's golden eyes were hazy with bemusement. "Uh...isn't she a little young for-"

"Selling information," Thom said.

"Ah." A rakish grin grew slowly on the lamia's enticing face. "Well, nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's pretty smart, what with all the criminals round here-"

"About us," the human finished.

A horrified chorus of "What?" rose, punctuated by one vindictive "I take that back!"

Chatoya stared at Kirsty Ausner. Oh, she knew that under that angel's face lay a mind like a switchblade, but...surely she knew how stupid that was, how selfish it was, how incredibly dangerous it was.

"You're kidding me," she said softly.

Kirsty turned her face to Chatoya, and gave her a small, satisfied smile. Her eyes were cold as the Himalayas and too old for her, far too old, almost frightening. For the first time, Chatoya had the sudden icy sense of what Blue must have been like as a child. That was what she was observing; someone who gave life no value except monetary.

"You revolting brat!" Cougar shouted as Lisa hastily removed anything near him that could be thrown or kicked. "You horrible, repulsive child! Not only do you use my phone to make international calls, not only do you pour lemonade in my TV, you put my life on the market!"

"Cougar?" Chatoya said, holding spitting and livid eyes with her own. "Not helping much."

"Or at all," Jepar amended.

"I wasn't trying to help, Panda Boy," the vampire snarled, raking his hands through coal hair. "Christ! Even the kids here turn out to be extras from the X-Files!"

"Guys..." Thom interrupted. He had a firmer hold on Kirsty now, who looked suspiciously as if she was trying to escape. "That's not all."

She thought Cougar was actually going to go into orbit at that point. "No. Of course it isn't. What else - are there fifty thousand raving cannibals outside waiting to batter down the door and eat us all? Have we all been struck by a fatal virus? Are Westlife going to come round carolling?"

Chatoya met the emerald eyes of Jepar, and saw his mouth twitching. She turned her face away, trying not to laugh. Cougar had never realised that his explosive tantrums were not so much horrifying as hysterical.

"Not entirely," the blond human said. "She's not just been passing information to Dark."

Iager's eyebrows arched, and Chatoya realised that he knew as little as they did. That indefinable strange something about him struck her again and-

There were lines on his face. That was it. At the corners of his eyes, and at his mouth. Something that had left age in his ageless face. Not joy. Some kind of heartache had come to this dragon and scarred him as the long years could not.

"Who else?" Cougar demanded in a near-whisper, his eyes narrowed into two sunrise slits.

_Uh oh,_ Lisa said tautly. _I think he's going to flip._

The vampire had her hand on Cougar's arm, but Chatoya could tell that wasn't going to stop him. She did the same, and he started slightly, but didn't shift his gaze from Kirsty.

Thom exhaled slowly, and opened his mouth.

And then Chatoya realised that the buzzing in her head had gone utterly silent, which could only mean one thing, one unfortunate and certain thing-

"Me," a voice drawled into the silence, and heads turned to see Blue Malefici framed in the doorway, a faint derisive smile on his mouth. He slung a backpack at his feet, and Chatoya eyed it apprehensively. "I've come to pay my disrespects."

X - X - X - X - X

"Oh hell no," a disgusted voice said. Romulus sneered at the boy she was dragging. "By the fucking moon, Flick, why have you brought him here?"

Felicity Serafine dropped the boy onto the floor, and for one disturbing moment he could have been a corpse lying there with those deep-shadowed eyes, limp, pallid as a burnt-out candle. "Why do you think, Rom? Found him in the woods. Not in a good state."

"Should have left him there then," the wolf said shortly, screwing up his blunt nose. "We don't need no trouble like him. He's a leech, Serafine, I can smell it from here."

"Well, we can all smell you from here too," she said pointedly, "but I don't see anyone asking you to leave."

Rom's flint-grey eyes were contemptuous. "You going to help every goddamn charity case that lurches in here?"

"Thanks," Cern Akafren said without looking up. "If you don't mind, I'm just going to lurch off and find something to eat that's cleaner than the crap round here."

Rom shrugged. "I wasn't talking 'bout you, halfbreed. You've got wolf blood. You're all right by me, even if you do have weird ideas. I'm talking about every other hobbling swan she's dragged on in."

Donna Ares glanced up, flinging back her mess of russet hair from her face. "I think you mean lame duck, lamebrain," the Pack leader said in her husky voice.

Romulus growled, and the sound was picked up and spread through the clearing. "Get him out."

Flick bared her own teeth, and laid the boy down on one of the sleeping bags scattered on the floor. "You don't like it, you get out, Rom."

"He's a parasite!"

"And you're a moron," she threw back, "but we don't comment on it. I'll fight you over this, Rom, I mean it." She had beat Rom in every other fight they'd had, and he knew she could do it again.

"There'll be no fighting." Donna's eyes were the same fresh green as summer grass, but harder than frozen glass. "He stays. Don't look like he's going to cause trouble to me, Romulus."

"Yeah? Funny, that last wolf didn't look like no trouble, did she, when I bit her goddamn finger off, and look what she turned out to be!"

"Shut up." Cern's voice snapped out so hard it could have been the flick of a flail. "You have no idea what Jal was."

Rom obviously was not in a mood to take warnings from the arched, quivering tension of his body. Coiled, and ready to leap. "You think you do? Luna, she ripped you to fucking shreds, and you still got this big hang-up about her? Yeah, so she was your soulmate, but that ain't nothing to go by. You have to love her, but it don't change the fact she belonged in Bedlam."

Cern's eyes had a light to them Flick hadn't seen since he first ran to them. It spoke of danger, of ferocious pain. "The only place you're going to belong is six feet under."

"Enough!" Donna snapped. "Take the testosterone somewhere else. Akafren; your wolf girl was nice, but nuts. Rom; you don't know the first thing about love and the way you're going, you never will so keep quiet. Felicity; he can stay. But you'd best go and find Tamara Slone - she's his soulmate."

He had a soulmate? Flick looked at the boy huddled at her feet as she stood guard for him. She'd seen him around - familiar somehow - but if he had a soulmate, why not run to her?

"How'd you know that?" Rom snarled sulkily. "She's vermin."

Donna's stare said that her mood was rapidly worsening. "Unlike you, I have friends outside this Pack. A little bird told me."

The boy's lips curled back to show his teeth and pink, gleaming gums.

"Very attractive," Donna said mildly. "No scurvy there, Rom. You have a problem with my choices, you can fight me or get out. In fact, even better, you can go and find Tamara Slone. No messing her around, no biting, no hitting on her."

For a moment, Flick thought he might refuse under the watchful, silent Pack's regard. But with a flurry of muttered and almost certainly unrepeatable words, he slunk away.

"Let's have a look at him," Donna said briskly. "Akafren, you're a healer. Get yourself over here."

Cern's eyes still held that churning, hazardous gleam, and Flick could see the leashed fury in his movements. "I don't heal anymore."

Donna's brows hiked up into the curls that fell over her forehead. "You're in this Pack, aren't you?"

"Not by choice."

He left unspoken the truth they all knew - that he had wanted death, that he had wanted to take the dark road and plant his feet in the footsteps of his soulmate who had gone before him in a whirl of smoke and scorching. She had gone gladly to her death, and taken all the gladness from his heart with her.

"Choice or not," Donna said a little more gently, kneeling down to examine Aspen Martin's face, "you're part of this Pack, and you'll do as I ask."

She lay two fingers under the vampire's ashen face, and turned it to her. There was a deathly pallor to him, and it seemed to Flick that she could read his terror even in repose.

"Oh, full moon madness," Donna sighed, and there was a note of exasperation in the words. "Of all the charity cases, why did you have to pick Aspen Martin, Flick?"

Aspen Martin. So this was the lost son Laburnum Martin had spent his life searching for.

I'm a fool, she thought. Yes, she knew now what had caused that blank grief, she knew what could snuff out all the joy and hope and fevered animation in a person. She had told Cougar herself that Laburnum Martin had found his son.

We're the same, you and I, she told him silently. But he found you again.

God, I hope he doesn't find me.

"I didn't know who he was," she said in a voice that seemed to be a little croaky. "But..."

But I would have helped anyway.

"I can't see any wounds on him," Cern put in mildly; he too knelt down, checking the vampire's pulse, and frowning faintly. "But...his aura's shot to hell."

Donna blinked. She sounded weary. "In English?"

The witch rubbed at his temples, and Flick noticed a scrape running out from under the wavy mahogany hair. He hadn't even been healing himself. "Auras tend to be one or two colours. Like...you're a very deep green, a little gold-tinged. Flick's a kind of copper colour. Very strong emotions show up as other colours; lies are black, anger is red, happiness is white, that kind of thing. But he's...not like anything I've ever seen."

Long speech. Flick approved; it was the most he'd said in a while, and now he was focused on healing, his violet eyes had lost a little of that anguish.

"What's he like?" Donna lifted an eyelid. "Doesn't look doped up. Take it you knocked him out, Flick? Someone's definitely socked the poor guy's mind - went through his shields."

"He didn't have any shields," she said quietly, and the Pack leader flung her head up, startled. She met Donna's gaze firmly. "Really."

Cern let out a low whistle. "No wonder. Ever done marbling? It's an art technique. My - friend," a subtle darkening of his eyes then, "Lisa, she's an artist. You mix up dyes in a tray then lay paper or whatever you want on top of them. Comes out as these crazy swirls of colour. That's what he's like - a big mess of red and orange and yellow."

The healing was good for him, Flick decided, and wondered if she should try coercing the Pack into making him heal all their scrapes. It took his mind off himself.

"Anger," Donna murmured thoughtfully. "The other two?"

"Orange is...panic? No, fear," Cern said finally. "But not just fear - something deeper. I don't know if you've ever felt something in your bones - a hunch, a certainty - but it's that, only fear instead. Terror and revulsion. The yellow..." He stopped. "I've only seen it once before," he said softly. "I thought it was in a dream - but perhaps it wasn't. Not...not long ago."

Flick looked down at Aspen Martin, and dared to stretch out her mind to his.

It was like being drawn into a cyclone, tearing up everything and spinning it into chaos; sensations besieged her, of darkness, of dank cold that bit at her bones and tears icing on her cheeks, of whispering and crooning voices, of stone and spiders and thorns or were they only things she couldn't comprehend?

She yanked her thoughts away, and swallowed down bile. "What is it?"

Cern sighed, and sat back. "It's madness. Pure madness."

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar was on his feet before Blue had finished talking and his eyes were a sunburst against the stark colour of his skin. "Get the hell out of here."

Blue didn't even deign to answer. He kicked shut the door and leaned back against it in reply. "I have some matters to discuss," he purred, crossing his ankles and looking almost comfortable in an atmosphere which even polar bears would have found somewhat nippy.

But that was hardly surprising. He was winter's creature, and his season was beginning. Yes, he belonged among the towering skies, belonged among the whites and blues and blacks of arctic hell; walk with the winter, and the cold would surely freeze your heart.

Thom, who had been holding his sister in place, now curled her into his lap protectively and glared. Kirsty was clinging to her brother, and for the first time, Chatoya saw a flash of fear on her face. "Not with my sister."

"No," Blue agreed. "She is dealt with. My dear Miss Ausner, I feel the urge to point out that while I have no objection at all to selling one's kith and kin, I do not appreciate being one of many receivers. Neither does Therese - lovely lady, quite psychotic, runs K'Shaia. Consequently, there is now a contract out on your head. It doesn't come into effect until you hit sixteen, but once you do, sweet is the last thing you will be."

The Old Soul's face was fiercer than Chatoya had seen it. Privately, she decided that if Blue could put out a contract to take life, she could put out one to save it.

_Don't bother,_ Blue advised witheringly, and his hooded eyes where strange, empty worlds thrived, clashed with hers. _Assassins only know how to save lives by taking others. And don't glare so, you'll strain something, other than my patience._

The dragonfire leapt about his body like a clinging second skin, but this time something new came with it. In her head, she had the eerie awareness of voices screaming distantly, under a wealth of crackling that could only be a fire...

"I'm not in a mood to play today," Blue said quietly. And it was there, in the vicious blaze of his smile, and the snap of his words. "And I'm going to cut straight to the spontaneous cruelty; my soulmate and that dragon may stay. The rest of you - out."

Cougar looked like he was going to refuse, but Blue just raised an eyebrow and the sky outside darkened. Their faces were in that moment almost indistinguishable, but where Cougar was the golden glory of desert sunsets and shadows, Blue was the azures and snows of a highland sky, and she knew which was more deadly.

"Let's go," Lisa muttered, practically dragging him into the kitchen.

"Lisa Ochai..." Blue's voice called her back, unwillingly though it was. Her face was defiant, fearless. "If you must plot my imminent demise, have the grace to think a little more quietly. And have the wit to make a better plan than that."

Chatoya didn't protest, despite the worried glance Jepar shot at her. She was afraid of what Blue might do to her friends, whereas there was a limit to what he could do to her.

The door snapped shut, and the three of them were left alone.

"Do you know who he is, Chatoya Irkil?" Blue enquired, the breathtaking blue stare flicking at Iager with no respect or anxiety at all.

"Fireblade," she said shortly, not bothering to look at the dragon.

"Apart from that. A little of his history? His old name? Fireblade is how his name would be rendered in our time, though in his it was quite different." He spoke in a curious, mocking tone as though there was something she should have known but didn't.

Whatever he was implying, she didn't grasp it, and from the look on Iager's face, a look that was mistrustful and mask-like, she didn't want to either.

"That's got nothing to do with any of this," the dragon averred. His hands were kneading at the chair he sat on, almost like a cat. "I know all about you, Malefici. You and your stolen dragon powers." The boy leaned forward, and his voice hissed into the silence viciously. "I know whose they were."

"Do you?" Blue shrugged. "I neither know nor care. They serve their purpose."

Orange eyes leapt like an inferno. "I could kill you now."

"Try it."

She could feel the power in the room, knotting like the air beneath electricity pylons, until it seemed to press her down. "Don't try it," Chatoya snapped. "I don't want to be in the middle of a mile-wide crater, which is what happened last time a couple of dragons decided to take it outside."

"Your wish is my command," Blue drawled, and there was a nip to the words she didn't miss. "Very well. I want to make a deal with you, Fireblade. This ridiculous spying game ends; personally, it's rather amusing, but I've interests other than my own to look after."

He meant her. Her and Pursang. She wasn't sure whether to be disturbed by this unexpected protection or amused.

Iager looked every inch the dragon as one corner of his mouth drew up into a sneer. "There's nothing you could offer me-"

"Ryar."

The dragon froze, and Chatoya could only stare in wonder at the change in his face; pure shock, mingled with desperation. It froze the words clean on his lips.

She knew the name. Ryar ap Sangager was the heroine to Fireblade's villain. She'd stood against him in the war, fought for humanity and for witches, and she had won – but she had paid with her life. She couldn't imagine why the name brought such raw emotion to Fireblade's face.

Then the dragon shook his head in a blaze of colour, and only pathos and trampled hope lay there. "I loved her," he said, and Chatoya felt a chill. "But she has been dead for thirty millennia."

"A small technicality," Blue remarked. He bent to pick up the backpack he had brought with him. "Rather like that lock you have on your window, witch of mine."

"You broke into my house?" What one earth could he possibly want that she had? There was nothing of worth in her room; well, nothing that he would take as valuable. Pictures, and books, and videos, the odd spell and-

The spell.

"I required something." And yes, she recognised with a curious dull feeling in her abdomen the faded, rolled parchment he drew from the bag. Not again.

"You can't." The words had flown her mouth before she could even consider them, and now she stood up, and simply looked at him. "I didn't agree with this before, and I don't agree now. I won't cast it."

"Your agreement is not required," Blue informed her icily. "Nor are your abilities. Fireblade is a Drax, witch of mine, and every spellcaster on this planet is descended from his kind."

She was drowning under the barrenness of his eyes, under the cold and bottomless sea that washed over her and tasted like tears, like death. "No. By all the gods! Let her rest! She doesn't deserve-"

"She did not deserve her death!" The dragon's voice cracked like a chasm splitting in the earth, and dragged her eyes to him. There was an awful hunger in his face, in the stare that fixed on the scroll like it held the secrets of the heart in it. "Ryar...Ryar was everything."

"No one is everything," Blue said scornfully, "or anything."

Iager ignored him, and for the first time, Chatoya understood the legendary passions of these immortal inhuman creatures. Fire in their blood, and fire in their hearts; and for one fleeting moment, she felt a terrible envy for Ryar, though she was long dust, envy that someone should have loved her with such soul-striking devotion.

"Then you're a fool," he said, and Blue only arched an eyebrow. "You're as much a fool as I was before I met her. She was loyal to me until...until I destroyed what she held dearest beyond me, and even then she loved me, though she fled and betrayed all our kind to the witches."

Age and sadness rolled in his voice like lions in the desert dust.

"I sought her," he continued, and she could almost see this boy, this thing made to hunt, moving through the ruins of a war-torn land, all fire in a land charred and seared. "When the battle was done, and so many were thrown into that death of sleep, I still ran from them and I ran after her, she and I the only ones still awake in a world that was a living nightmare."

His eyes closed, and his mouth trembled with regret; despite herself, despite all she knew him to be, Chatoya couldn't help the pity that surged in her. Pity not reflected in Blue, in the expressionless face, near boredom except for something that told her he listened as keenly as she.

"Days, I followed her," the dragon said slowly, hands pressed to his temples, head tilted back. "Long days, over all the spoiled earth, and across the bodies - so many of them, stinking in the sunlight and some of them dragons, some of them people I knew. Long days, but longer nights, with no stars and no moon to shed any light. By then, she knew I ran in her shadow, and she knew it was hopeless but she still ran." He paused, and shivered abruptly. "Wherever she passed, I could hear the birds singing. And I silenced them all. One by one by one, until there was only her voice left to sing, and nowhere left for her to go."

Chatoya was silent, spellbound. Scraps of rage, of long-gone desperate rage still clung to his words, and she understood how such passion was so deadly.

"I don't think I ever loved her until then." His head lolled forward, and Chatoya found his eyes pinning hers, dreamy and distracted but still striking in their force. "Until she stopped, and I found her waiting for me there, waiting with her hair loose and her feet trailing in the river. It wasn't far from here, this home we had made together but where I had left her alone, fool that I was."

The image blossomed in her head, and she realised that he was showing her the end of that vengeful, empty hunt. Of the girl who waited with such patience and such tender, tranquil regard for this dragon. Her hair fell like moonbeams pouring forth, and there was a great melancholy in her eyes that were deeply violet as the sky in the throes of night.

"During that long hunt, and all through the war, I had hated her. And then I saw her..." A faint, bitter laugh escaped him. "I saw her, and I realised that I had only thought I hated her; I had only known hate before, hate and want and contempt. She was everything I had never been, and everything that could never have lived in the world I had wanted, and everything I had not known she was. Yes...I think I loved her then."

Words whispered, words that Chatoya couldn't hear but didn't want to, spoken between these two so long ago.

"I killed her." Anguish bright in his eyes. "I loved her, and I killed her. It's so much easier to hate what you love, and love it all the more. And I brought her to this place, and covered her body in the waters and prayed that one day I would hear her voice again. But there has been only the silence, and the emptiness, and memories."

He broke off, and shook himself. "And now...now you tell me that I should leave her be. I should let her rest. No. I would hear her voice. If it broke the sky into pieces, and turned the seas to smoke, I would hear her voice. Would you refuse me?"

Dumbfounded, Chatoya could only shake her head. Not in negation; simply because she had no other reaction. Yes, she wanted to say, I would. But...

But the choice, it seems, isn't mine.

Blue threw him the scroll. "Not at all. I suppose I should be grateful they didn't have tape recorders in the days of yore, or this would all have been futile."

The dragon was poring over the scroll, his face alight with that same fierce and destructive ardour.

"The debt, witch of mine," and Blue's voice caught her, devoid of all its mockery, "is paid."

But at what price? she wondered.

_Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere,  
But one last time let's go there,  
Lay down beside me_


	21. Chapter Twenty

My thanks to everyone who commented last time round - you are lovely, sparkly wondrousnesses (It's a word, it is!) Thank you to:

**Danel, Meg, Dianna, DLJewel, Mandy, Eleyne, Crimson Tears, Sianna, Queen Kat, Rain,Midnight Haze, Baloo, Werepanther, Leopardess, Blaze Baelfire, Dark Princess, Katherine, **and the divine **Diomede. **

Reviews are much loved, revered and adored - please tell me what you think, be it comment or criticism; both are welcome, and I am totally open to suggestions.

The lyrics come from Anna Nalicks _Wreck of the Day_ (Album: Wreck of the Day).  
Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty**

_Driving away from the wreck of the day  
And the light's always red in the rear-view  
Desperately close to a coffin of hope  
I'd cheat destiny just to be near you_

Tamara Slone was nearly in tears by the time she was stumbling down the road, her eyes wide and blank and terrified, though not for herself. She couldn't feel him, she _couldn't feel him_ and from the moment there had been that agonised, dying scream in her mind, only silence had taunted her.

She didn't know where Aspen was. Everywhere she had searched had been empty of him, and now she was trying home again in the faint hope that he might have run back there like the frightened, hunted creature he was inside.

Someone was outside the house!

Oh, please let it be him, this dark-haired guy examining the lock with careful concentration and-

It wasn't.

He had spun at her approach. A hard-faced, shabby boy looked her up and down with his hands jammed in his pockets as though he were appraising her at a cattle market. Romulus. The horrible one who had tried to grope her at a party and ended up walking strangely for a day or two after a well-aimed kick. The one Aspen said was a werewolf.

"No," she snarled, too worried to even be polite. "Not interested."

"Been looking for someone?" The insidious, oily tones of his voice threw gasoline on an already smouldering furnace. "You're so...flushed."

"Get out of my way," she said flatly, elbowing past him. Let Aspen be there, she'd never let him out of her sight again, never.

"You should be more polite to me," he remarked, and snickered. "Reckon you might need me."

She ducked inside, calling him through the soulmate link. Only the same woolly quiet that had filled her mind these past hours. Not at the Café. Not out with his friends at the half-pipe. Not by the lake. Next up would be Blue Malefici - and she shuddered at the thought of him. Maybe it was him - maybe he'd hurt Aspen because...god, who knew why Blue did anything?

"Only as an organ donor," she told him flatly, and slammed the door.

There was a crunch as it hit his foot, and he growled something happily incomprehensible. Then in a manner alarmingly reminiscent of the Shining, he thrust his face through the gap, and hissed, "Listen, don't shut the door, Donna'll kill me! I know where Martin is!"

There was a note of panic in his voice.

Tam flung open the door without any thought except simply, Aspen, and there was more snarling as it knocked him off his feet and onto the porch. "Where?" she demanded, dragging him up with a strength born of desperation. "Why didn't you say?"

His eyes were feral and rolling. "Come on. I'll drive you."

Romulus edged away from her warily, rubbing at his spine. Hurry up, Tam thought as she threw herself into the car and waited for what seemed like aeons for the engine to start. Hurryuphurryup!

"Is he okay?" she shot at him.

The wolf turned around in a sideroad, careful with the rusted and slightly battered Volvo. "He's alive, ain't he? Counts for okay with leeches."

She debated hitting him, but it would do no one any good. "Yes, but is he all right?"

Romulus shrugged, and started back up the street. "He was out for the count. Probably just playing it up, like all them vampires do."

Tam tapped the dashboard impatiently, ignoring his obvious prejudice. Let him be okay. "Can't you go faster? Christ, I thought psychotics like you were supposed to- _you're not even doing the legal limit_!"

Romulus' hands were white on the wheel. "I only just passed my test, I don't want a ticket-"

"I don't care about your damn tickets!" she screamed. "Go faster right now!"

"Look, I don't like going fast. It makes me nervous," he explained through gritted teeth, flinching as a car went past them. "Things like this are dangerous-"

Tam stared in a mixture of disbelief and horror then grabbed his forearm, ignoring his curse as the car jolted sideways. "If your foot is not flat to that floor in two seconds, there won't be enough left of you to take home in a doggie bag, no pun intended at all."

He took one look at her outraged, fanatical eyes, and her set mouth, and hit the gas pedal.

X - X - X - X - X

Iager was gone. Blue was gone. Chatoya didn't know where either of them were, and she didn't particularly care, unless it was at the bottom of the ocean, in which case she would crack open the champagne. And now she had another problem to deal with, a problem that slunk in looking extremely cagey, surreptitiously checking her for wounds before he sat down.

"Lisa and JJ have gone home." Cougar broke the silence. "And Thom took Kirsty...somewhere."

"Any chance at all that it's Borstal?" she enquired tersely.

"None." His breath hissed in and out in their silence. It's my blood giving you breath, she thought. Your heart beats to my music, and your body dances to the rhythm of my pulse. "Toya..."

She thrust back her hair, and scrubbed at the two dark marks. "How could you? Goddess, Cougar, you know how I feel about this!"

"Toya, you were gone! You were this awful colour, hardly breathing and I was so _scared_."

That shocked her. Cougar never admitted to fear. Scared was a child's word, and the eyes he lifted to her in near-veneration were foaming with fear; the eyes of that child who had worked and worked to try and help his brother, and who had shrugged away the bruise that must have left more mark than mere pain.

"Dear one," she said gently, and something move in his expression, brilliant, intense, "did you have to bite me? I can't stand it. It's...horrible. You're so much stronger, you and Blue and Jepar and Lisa and Tali - you're all so strong, and if you wanted, you could make me some kind of toy. I have to trust you not to do that and this - this is the start."

"I know I shouldn't have," he mumbled, misery unbridled in his voice and gestures. "But you don't understand, Toya. You've changed. Blue's changed you, and you don't even see it. You walk right into danger and you don't seem to care. If you mind me preying on you," and the sarcasm twisted in his voice like a towel being wrung dry, "then why the hell are you messing around with my little brother?"

"Is that what this is about?" It cut into her head like a hot knife cleaving butter, and she heard the new agitation in his voice when he said Blue's name. "Blue?"

"No!" Cougar snapped, getting up to pace the room with sharp and hungry steps. "Christ, Toya! It's about you getting mauled by wolves, and fainting all over the place, and running off without a word, and...and...other things."

"No, I don't think that's it," she said softly. "But I don't know what it is. And you won't say."

He stopped behind her, and she tilted back her head to see him lean along the back of the couch, directly above her. His voice was slow as agony, soft as a whisper. "Maybe I can't."

"I thought we were friends." Above her, his eyes seemed endlessly dark in his shadowed face. Had any king ever been more imperial, more lonely?

He breathed in, and his hands rested on her shoulders with a touch both light and yet with his words, heavier than all the weight of the earth's worries. "I thought differently."

"What is it you want from me?" she said, half-exasperated and half entranced.

He drew back, and the shade he had cast over her vanished with him. She twisted to follow him as he walked around, over to the front of the couch and then sat, with a deliberation that made her uneasy. Cougar was not a thing of consideration; he was unexpected as a static shock, explosive as a landmine and slave to his emotions.

"I didn't know myself for a long time," he said, his mouth taut and near grim. "And then I realised I'd been...stupid. I guess that's nothing different, but it was a new kind of stupid."

Silent, she waited, snagged by the curious, meditative quality of his voice.

"What do I want?" The dreamy, hazy light in his eyes cleared into gold; luminous as the sun itself, life-giving and blazing and drawing all to it with a force that was born of massive fire and swiftness.

That moment was back; that fluttering, striving tension like an osprey fighting the straps about its legs, fiercer and more dangerous than it had been before.

"What do I want...?" he mused again.

Her stomach flipped as the vampire leaned forwards, and scrutinised her with an concentration near disturbing in its intimacy, its knowledge. Something raw, rash in his stare.

At last she said uneasily, "What do you want?"

He cocked his head, and reached out to curl one hand around the back of her neck. The flush began, creeping out from her cheeks and up from her heart, the feeling that this was forbidden, and paradoxically strange yet familiar.

The contact drew them close, so close she was afraid to breathe in case something happened and that moment flew screaming, released. Gold filled her vision, sacrosanct and strong, and her breath was shackled in her throat, and prisoner to his answer.

"More," he said.

That moment soared free, the answer to a question she hadn't even known she was asking until now. Oh, Goddess. Oh.

"Cougar," she began, and stopped. His fingers on her neck were trembling, and she realised what it must have cost him to say that, and just how much it had cost not to. What a choice to have to make.

But her voice had exposed her thoughts, and she saw the hurt, hidden just as rapidly, pass through him.

"Don't tell me it won't work," he said quietly. His face was white, that tantalizing bone structure more pronounced. "Don't fling the clichés at me, Toya. I've thought, and I've thought, and I've tried not to, but I think I-"

She clapped a hand over his mouth. "Don't say that!"

His hand left her neck to wrap about her wrist. "What?" His voice was half-angry. "What? Don't say I love you?"

It stabbed her.

Not this. Please. Cougar had always been her snappy, angry friend, a charging crocodile that had switched itself into human form, and she had always felt safe with him. She could run to him with guy problems and tease him ruthlessly and enjoy his biting humour.

"But you don't," she told him softly, trying to tell herself this was not some surreal, peculiar dream; this was real, this was happening. "You've known me three years, Cougar, and you've never been like this before!"

"You believe in love at first sight," he threw at her, lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. "Why not ninety-first?"

Chatoya shook her head dazedly. "But Cougar...I don't feel that way about you. You're my friend."

"I wouldn't stop being your friend."

It hurt her to say this, and to know that she would cause him pain; but it would hurt her more to lie, and pretend to feel something that she didn't. "Cougar, I can't."

"Do you love someone else?" he asked, and didn't meet her eyes as though it pained him to ask.

"No!"

He looked at her, and swallowed. Oh, she thought, dear one, you always think you're so clever at hiding what you feel, but your eyes can't lie. I'm sorry I had to say that, and I'm sorry I have to do this...but whatever else you are to me, be it sunlight, or anger, or woodsmoke, you are not my universe.

"It has to be that way...?"

She patted his hand. "Yeah. It does. But thank you for telling me."

"Did I mess up?" he asked in a near-groan. "I shouldn't have said it, should I?"

"You should," she reassured. "At least I know why you've been so moody."

A flicker of a smile on his face, though it didn't glitter in his eyes. "Nah. I'm always moody. It's going to be hard. Knowing you know."

She chuckled. "Oh, come on, Cougar, you'll get over me! I'm not going to break anywhere near as many hearts as you!"

Those shrewd eyes narrowed and his smile had a little more confidence, though there was something sad in it too. "Oh...I don't know, Toya. Maybe you'd be surprised. And if you change your mind..."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I know who to yell for."

"I hope you're not talking about Jepar," he said deadpan, and that was more her Cougar, if the melancholy curve of his lips was not.

"I think he's taken."

"No kleptomaniac worth their salt would steal him," the lamia quipped. She knew it helped him; it was easier, always so much easier to hide under words. To make people think it was all a big joke to you, that nothing mattered. She knew that it wasn't true, but she let it lie. If he could pretend not to feel, she could do him the courtesy of pretending it wasn't an act.

"Are we okay?" she prompted.

"Well, apart from having my heart ground into mincemeat..." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was such a childish gesture that Chatoya nearly forgave him the remark that smarted like a slap. "We will be. Just...don't flaunt any boyfriends round me, okay? I may not be able to restrain myself-oh, god, please tell me they didn't hear all of that."

It was then that she noticed the blond head peering halfway round the door, and no doubt behind him, Lisa was listening eagerly. "Come in," she bid them more bitterly than she intended. "Why not? Let's make this group therapy!"

Lisa sidled in, pasting an utterly blank look on her face. "Hear any of what?" she attempted guilelessly, coming to perch on the arm of the chair Chatoya was on.

Neither of them apologised; Lisa didn't hold grudges, and they both knew what they would say anyway, so neither needed to hear the words. Chatoya simply knew that the rift was healed, if not forgotten.

Jepar strolled in with his usual supple grace, balancing a tray of iced fruit juice drinks on one hand and a basket of tortilla chips in the other. "Well," he said philosophically, setting them down on the table and collapsing onto the floor with a grateful sigh, "if we're going to argue about eavesdropping, no point in doing it on an empty stomach."

Cougar gave him a distinctly unimpressed glare and slithered away from Chatoya to swipe a drink, though she had the feeling that perhaps that was just an excuse. "You could have had the decency not to listen."

"Didn't I say the same to you when Toya and I broke up?" Jepar inquired dryly. "And what was it you said...let me think...oh yes, you should know by now that I am utterly indecent on all occasions."

"I swear," Cougar said flatly, "one of these days, I am going to kill you."

Jepar grinned, and his eyes danced wickedly. "At least I'll get some peace." He put his hands up in mock-defence as the lamia started towards him. "No, all right! All doom, gloom and tombs from now on, I promise." Cougar contented himself with slumping lengthways onto the couch, leaving his feet close enough to Jepar's head to make the cheetah shuffle away a little.

"What's going on with you and Blue?" Lisa asked, leaning over to close her hands around a glass and nestle it to her, probably, Chatoya knew, so she wouldn't bite her nails. The vampire nudged her. "Are you...?"

"We make mad passionate love every night," she said gravely, and then gave Cougar a daggered stare as he half-sat up and opened his mouth to protest. "Come on, Cougar! Do you really think I would?"

"Well," Jepar murmured, "you know what they say about the Redferns. They put the fun in fungal infection." There was the thud of foot meeting neck. "Ouch! Can't you take a joke?"

Another kick indicated Cougar couldn't.

"Well, it's true," the shapeshifter muttered.

"Yeah? Well, do you know what they say about shapeshifters?" Cougar flung heatedly.

Jepar swivelled his head to keep an emerald eye on the outraged Redfern. "They put the best in bestiality?"

The vampire blinked, and whatever he had been about to shout was blocked by the unwilling smile that turned up his mouth. "All right," he conceded grudgingly. "Maybe the family does have a little bit of a reputation."

Lisa chuckled, and tapped her fingers on her glass idly. "From what I hear, hon, the Redfern reputation is not for little bits. And Toya still hasn't answered the question. "

Three pairs of expectant eyes turned her way, Cougar's a curiously intense colour, as though the sun's rays had been crushed into one tiny mass about to go supernova.

"Honestly," she assured them, "there's nothing going on. I'm not stupid. I remember what he is. I can deal with him."

"You know," Jepar said thoughtfully, laying his head on the back of the couch, "I think you can."

Cougar rumbled beneath his breath, but they all ignored it. Three years of living with a vampire who had queued up several times when hormones were being handed out had made them impervious to any of his surly comments, his vastly instructive body language, or his high voltage scowling.

"Do you realise," Lisa said wistfully, "it hasn't been just us in a long time?"

Cougar nodded. "Things were good then. Apart from you two," a sly glance from Jepar to Chatoya, "hanging all over each other. You were so the match made in heaven, and I swear, I was that close to getting a match made on earth and some gasoline and using a little creativity so I wouldn't have to watch you being cute." He put his head onto his arm, and drew his legs up a little. "I miss Sonj. She understood me."

"No, she hit you back," said Jepar and dodged another viper-swift kick. "Hey! I need my spine in one piece, thank you."

"I was aiming for your voicebox." Cougar informed him regally. "Okay, maybe we didn't always see eye to eye, and she did keep throwing away my cigarettes, chucking water in my face every morning and making me do housework, but she didn't want me to be perfect."

"Ah, back to the time-honoured soulmate problem," Jepar said dryly.

The lamia quirked an eyebrow, and trouble tolled like bells in his voice. "Oh, yeah, like you have problems."

"You ever seen Tali angry?" he argued, stretching out his legs until the joints crackled. "Do you have any idea what she can do?"

All three of them looked at his black eyes pointedly. But Chatoya was intrigued; she had thought all was sweet and sunny in Jepar's world, like he himself was. Although Tali was a little icy, and there was something too knowing about her that came from eight hundred years of life, she had thought the pair were perfect.

"Maybe you do," the shifter acknowledged. "I just wish she wasn't a dragon. Alisha was...human. And she didn't seem so distant. Now - I think she's afraid of making a mistake again."

"Have you tried telling her you won't throw yourself off a cliff this time round?" suggested Cougar innocently, and Chatoya tried not to wince because the words were alarmingly close to those she had flung at Tali just last night. She hadn't known she'd hit so close to her heart. Or known that her heart could be so easily wounded.

"I told her I wasn't all that fond of stilts, never mind cliffs." He spread his hands, looking near-helpless. "She hardly seems to have any emotions sometimes, and I need emotions."

"Funny," Cougar said glumly, "I don't, and my soulmate has them in abundance."

"It could be worse." Chatoya half-smiled, because it was smile or cry with Blue. "You could have my soulmate."

"Or none at all," reminded Lisa, crunching a chip down. "Look, let's just accept that none of us are capable of having a happy relationship, and move on to how much money we're going to make out of our divorces."

"Divorce?" Cougar demanded. "Honestly, woman, you think I'm going to marry?"

"Isn't this the 'let's make a pact' moment?" Jepar said cheerfully. "You know, if none of us are married by forty, we all marry each other?"

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Is that legal?" Chatoya said, grinning at her lanky friend. "I'm not really into polygamy."

"How about just bigamy then?" Cougar gave her what was probably meant to be a leer. "Or if you want, you can be a slave in my harem."

"Oooh, try and stop me," she teased, but caught his little jolt of pain and hastily changed the subject. "Well, at least we can all be emotional cripples together."

The shapeshifter raised his glass. "Here's to total failure, utter lack of control, and an empty, hellish future."

Four glasses clinked. "Our lives," Cougar drawled, sharing a miraculous, pure smile, and for a moment, they could have been back in that brief, peaceful summer three years ago.

X - X - X - X - X

Tam couldn't stop the little cry that left her lips as she saw Aspen curled on the ground. She pushed through the people standing over him.

God, she'd never seen him this way; swan-pale and shadowed, mud slathering one side of his face from where he must have been lying on the ground, smeared on his clothes. Her hand was not entirely steady, as she reached out and ran her fingers over one of the three white-blond streaks that shot through his hair-

His eyes opened.

They were wild and dark, and for a moment didn't know her. Images blasted her mind, terrible images that made her gorge rise, made her want to shut her eyes and shut out the world and shut out everything-

"You came," he whispered numbly, and he was shivering all over, hardly seeming to see anything but her. "You shouldn't be here. You don't want me."

"Of course I do," she said fiercely, and had to swallow hard as he sat up, and scrabbled back from her. His face was distraught, the face of that half-mad, half-shattered boy she had glimpsed only once before.

"No you don't." He shook his head violently, so violently she thought he might snap his spine and her hands twitched to touch him and comfort him. "You don't know how bad I am."

He believed it. That soft, broken tone told her he really believed it.

"You're not!" she said furiously, and held her hands out to him. "Aspen..."

He stared at her hands as if they were something strange and wonderful. "You don't want me," he repeated, but his gaze never left her hands. "You don't understand."

"Make me, then," she told him.

A whimper, spilling out of his mouth. It was a sound of pure terror, and he recoiled from her. "Don't say that!"

He wouldn't move, she could see that. And that meant she had to get up, slowly, feeling the eyes of the Pack on her and not caring a whit, and walk over to him, seeing him look up at her with something that sliced deeper and quicker than a knife; fear.

And then she knelt down, and watched the fear collapse into sheer fractured need, and hugged him, but he only shook in her arms, and lay his head on her shoulder. He was so cold, cold as if he'd been pushed down into icy waters, cold as death, and the only warmth about him was the tears sliding on her collarbone.

_He came back,_ he said hollowly into her head. His voice was flat and dead and awful. _Tam, Tam, my Tam, he came back. They killed him, she killed him, but what if he comes back again?_

"He won't," she murmured, not understanding, only stroking his hair. She couldn't cry too, she couldn't, but she was, and surely she should be strong when he needed her, wasn't that how it should be?

_But he will_, he chattered, the thought flung at her like a volley of arrows, over and over. _You don't know him, Tam, you don't know what he is and what he can do and what he will do..._

"Come home," she pleaded to him. "Please, let's go home, and you know he won't find you there."

_But what if he does? He'll hurt me, Tam, and he'll make me empty, and I don't want to be empty anymore. I wanted you, but he came back, and he's poisoned me, you shouldn't be near me-_

He had been ripped in half easy as paper, and nothing she could say or do would erase his fear. She could only do what she thought best, and that would not be enough.

"Come home," she said again. If she was home, she could deal with this. Home was safe, home was sanctuary, home was sacred. Her mother would know what to do, she always knew. "Mom will look after you, she won't let anyone in."

_Home..._ It was a brief harmony in that mess of discord. _I don't have a home._

_You have mine._

She pulled him to his feet, helped by a copper-haired girl who slid over to help, shocked at how ashen he was. His eyes were no longer wild, but worse; drained, and near blank. It was as if whatever there was in him had been bleeding away, and now there was a mere shell left.

_Come with me,_ she told him silently. _It will be all right._

But she didn't know how it could be.

_And maybe I'm not up for being a victim of love  
When all my resistance will never be distance enough  
Driving away from the wreck of the day  
And it's finally quiet in my head  
Driving alone, finally on my way home to the comfort of my bed_


	22. Chapter Twenty One

A huge thank you to all of you who commented last time round, especially for your patience, and for those of you who got in touch with me to encourage and check I was okay - that was utterly lovely of you. Thanks:

**Carina, Dark Fortuna, Dianna, OnKloudNyne, DLJewel, Baloo, Leopardess, Midnight Haze, Mandy, Blaze Baelfire, Danel, Eleyne, Dianna, Sianna, Crimson Tears, Dark Princess, Lavender12, Meg, Queen Kat, Diomede, Orange, Akiness, Insane, Raquel **and last but not remotley least, **Lotty.**

Comments are much adored, pored over, cheered, revered and generally worshipped. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

The lyrics come from_ H_ by Tool (Album: Aenima), which is a knockout song. I hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty One**

_The snake behind me hisses  
What my damage could have been.  
My blood before me begs me  
Open up my heart again.  
And I feel this coming over like a storm again._

Darkness bled into the sky as a sulky Romulus drove away at a crawl to rival a tortoise. The sky bled like Tam's heart as she hauled a stumbling Aspen up to the house. He was silent, utterly silent, except for ragged breaths that seemed to saw at her. Their silhouettes trailed them over the grass, long and wavering, though no shadows could ever stretch as far as those in his eyes.

"Come on," she urged softly, pushing him inside the house. The golden light flooded over her and lit the three white streaks in his hair. The smell of baking pastry wafted from the kitchen and filled her with comfort. Home, oh, everything would be all right here; if it wasn't right here, it would never be.

But it would be. It had to be. The thought made the lump in her throat rise up like an air bubble through water, and she had to blink rapidly to stop tears.

"Hey, Tam!" her little brother called from the living room above the sound of the television. "Where've you been? You said you were going to pick me up from soccer, and-"

He swung around the doorway, a stocky, dark-eyed boy who was tall for his age, and had the same curly black hair, cropped short but still utterly untameable. "-Mom was really mad that-"

And then Billy saw Aspen, saw the mud caking him, the pale face and the way he was leaning on Tam, and the words were strangled sure as if a noose had choked them off..

"Aspen..." he said uncertainly, and his eyes flicked to Tam, letting her glimpse the apprehension there. It reminded her that however tall Billy was, he was still her little brother, and more innocent than he played at being. "You okay?"

Tam felt Aspen's grip tighten round her arm, fingers cold and clammy as seaweed before he only shook his head dumbly. He had no words any more, she knew that as if it was etched on her heart. This ran beyond his voice, beyond his grasp, beyond any kind of expression.

Billy swallowed. His foot edged back on the threshold, as though he might run away. "I'll get Mom."

"For what?" her mother said, appearing behind him, dusting her hands. Immaculate as ever, she had an apron on over her elegantly tailored suit. She blinked as she saw Aspen, and for a moment Tam had the horrifying thought that her mother's opening words would be to scream about the mud on her carpet-

"Dear god, what have you been doing?" Jodie Slone gasped, and her voice brought Celia creeping down the stairs to gape at the scene. There was utter bemusement and concern on her mother's face as she took in the state of Aspen, and the emptiness in his face. "Tam, honey, are you all right?"

Tam found that however hard she blinked, the tears wouldn't go away. "Mom..." Her voice was husky, and she had to clear her throat. "Mom, Aspen's...in trouble."

Their eyes met, and she felt a sweeping relief in knowing that her mother understood that this was not some fight, or some kind of teenage stunt; this was serious.

"Billy," her mother said briskly, "go and find Celia, and run down to the shop to get me some potatoes. We've run out."

He gave her a confused look. "But Mom, you've-"

She fixed her Nike look on him; the one that declared Just Do It. "Now, Billy. And take Celia with you. My purse is in my briefcase, and buy yourself some ice-creams at the parlour."

Her little brother hesitated, but it was too good a treat to be turned down, and her mother's look was intensifying to the point of combustion. The other three stood like statues as Billy and Celia dashed out of the house, until the door clicked shut.

Her mother let out her breath. "Lord," she murmured, and crossed herself. "What have you been doing, my lad?"

Aspen didn't answer; he was looking at her mother with the same blankness that he had showed Tam since they had left the woods and driven back. It was as though he had given himself into her hands to do with him what she would, and the thought of anyone allowing themselves to be moulded like that disturbed Tam beyond belief.

"Tam?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly, and the tears escaped, making her scrub at her eyes. "Mom...please..."

Her mother's mouth twisted in the way it always did when she was making a decision; Tam had seen the gesture as she agonised over sales, and pondered over her children's lives. "All right, explanations later," she announced finally. "Is he hurt?"

"No, but..."

Jodie Slone waved a hand. "All right, Tam," she murmured. "Let's get him out of those filthy clothes, and let him get some sleep. There's no point in taking him to the surgery now; they're closed."

He was like an automaton. Tam managed to get him up the stairs, his long frame shivering every step of the way, while her mother made him some herbal tea that was likely to be liberally dosed with sleeping pills. Tam could hardly look his way as she sat him down on his bed for fear that she would burst into tears. She could only wrap her arms about him, and wish the warmth from her body into his.

It was a long half hour before her mother could convince Aspen to let her check for broken bones, despite all Tam's urgings and whisperings, and another ten minutes before he would take the herbal tea. For once, her mother didn't refer to him as 'hoodlum', but was gentle with him as she had been when Tam had fallen over as a child.

His teeth were chattering by the time he had finished the tea, gripping the mug so hard she was afraid it would shatter. His blank mask was beginning to crack, but he showed no response to anything either of them said. Only contact got any reaction, and that was near-violent.

"Now," her mother said firmly, "are you capable of undressing yourself, young man, or am I going to have to do it?"

Something approaching mute horror flickered in Aspen's eyes, and he shook his head fiercely. It was the first real reaction he'd had, and Tam saw her mother give a tiny nod of satisfaction.

"Thank heavens for that," she muttered. "All right, we're going to wait outside and if you are not in bed, and at least pretending to be asleep when I open the door in five minutes, I will not be amused." The words were gentle, though her stare said that however traumatised he was, her mother would put up with only a limited amount of histrionics.

X - X - X - X - X

"Mom," Tam wailed as she shut the door and then burst into tears. "Oh, Mummy, I love him so much, I just want him to be all right."

Horrified herself by the boy's unresponsive vacuity, Jodie Slone did her best to hide her shock. She had grown used to the young man who had lived in their house these past months, and come to like his combination of sweetness and daring. Privately, she considered him an excellent match for Tam - if still a little uncouth - and had adopted him like one of her own children.

Now, she hugged her daughter, and bit her lip at the childish name that Tam hadn't called her in at least a decade. "Hush honey," she said, rubbing her back. "He'll be all right."

"But what if he isn't?" her daughter sobbed, tears soaking into Jodie's shoulder, and her body shaking almost as intensely as Aspen had. "Mom, mom, you don't understand, he's had...things...they've, and he's all - and you can't, I mean...Mu-um!"

"Come on now," she said soothingly, guiding Tam down the stairs and into the kitchen. "You need to calm down, sweetheart. Getting upset won't solve anything. We'll have a good hot cup of tea, and you can tell me what's wrong - and tomorrow I'll give Doctor Morrison-"

"No!" Tam's head jolted up, and the eyes staring at her were wild and afraid. "Not a doctor, Mom!"

"He needs help." Jodie sat her down, watching Tam's distraught face. Ah, this the child she had raised, and panicked over, and worked for and lived her life for, and loved more than she had thought she would. And she'd sometimes made the wrong decisions for her daughter, but she'd always done what she thought was right, and this, she knew, was right. "More than we can give him."

"No!" Tam clung to her wrists, mutely pleading.

She had never seen this intense desperation in her daughter, this fervour that Jodie had sometimes caught flickering in the boy when he was anxious about Tam. And it made her glad, and afraid; glad her daughter could feel that mystical, famed true love that Jodie had never had for her ex-husband, but afraid that such violent feelings would tear her child apart.

"We're what he needs. Just people who want him, and people to show him he's not wrong or poison or evil-"

She started to cry again, taking huge racking gulps of air and scrubbing frantically at already red and puffed eyes. Jodie waited for the tears to stop, and handed her a tissue.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong with him?" Jodie said. "Sweetheart, I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime, but never anyone like him." The only thing she had seen that was even close had been on her travels in India, years and miles long gone. The eyes of the lepers that crawled the narrow streets, yes, they had had something of that pain, and something of that emptiness too.

Tam pressed her lips together, as if speaking the words would harm her. "He was...hurt. By a man. When he was...a kid. And something happened today. I don't know what, Mummy, he wouldn't say."

The words didn't quite sink in. Jodie let her eyes fall shut for a moment. So that was why the boy was so defensive. And maybe why he had looked at her family with such awe when he first came to live with them.

"Honey - a doctor-"

"No!" Tam jumped to her feet, knocking her chair over. "Please, Mom, no. Can't we just see if he gets better first, with us? Then if...if he doesn't..." Her voice trembled, and died.

Jodie held her breath, and tried to decide. But finally, Tam's anxious, beseeching face swayed her. "All right," she said flatly. "A few days. If he's the same then, he's going to Doctor Morrison."

Tam tried to smile, but it came out as a grotesque parody. Poor little darling, Jodie thought, looking at her, She truly loves that boy.

"And," she added, "Just for tonight, and because I think I can trust you, you can stay with him." And she had seen the way the boy was clinging to her daughter. She didn't like it much, but she had to accept that perhaps in that at least, Tam was right. He did need her daughter.

Tam nodded, and busied herself wiping her eyes and trying to clean herself up. When the pair of them went back up, and Jodie left her daughter perched on the boy's bed, looking down at his face with something near despair, she didn't miss the tear-streaks on the boy's cheeks, or the foetal position his body was curled into, or the way he was shivering even in drug-induced sleep.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya Irkil turned over in her bed again, kicking her feet restlessly against the tangle of sheets. Sleep had lost its path to her this evening, and dragged any chance of peace with it, leaving her to the night which spun out as flax might on a spinning wheel.

And in her head, the voice whispered and rustled and murmured, dangling fragments of words before her, globules of thoughts clinging to her head like thick cream. She knew those sumptuous tones; of course she did; that voice had purred threats in her ears, and gripped her with each syllable.

Now it was a constant sound in her mind, as though Blue stood behind her, whispering intrusive secrets to her, but into a changing wind that dragged the sounds to and forth, towards her and away from her.

Shut up! she screamed at him. God, don't you ever stop thinking?

Sometimes, she heard her own name, and heard exasperation with it. Other times, names of her friends, and places, and once, a whole tantalising sentence that scuttled past her like a loose cockroach; _andwhenshe'shereIwillhavetheFour..._

Chatoya groaned aloud, and pulled the pillow over her ears. Fine, perhaps she had wanted to know what Blue was thinking, but she would have liked the whole script, not just the pre-release trailer. The noise was utterly infuriating. Too subtle to make any sense, too irregular to be ignored, alarmingly like Blue himself.

But she knew it wasn't entirely fair to blame him. Because there was that other thing, that other problem lurking deep inside her heart.

The wolves.

God, so stupid, so illogical. Wolves couldn't get in here, not into her house, into her room. But still, she thought she could smell that rank and rotting odour on the air, and hear the pant of their breath.

Stop it! They can't get in here, you know they can't.

But fear doesn't feed on logic.

Goddess, bring me peace, she begged from inside the safe little cocoon of pillow and sheets. Or at least earmuffs.

X - X - X - X - X

His fingers traced the patterns on the parchment reverently, quivering somewhat. He felt more awake than ever he had been, even in the war, even in that moment when he had crushed her soul from the world and left only a name hanging in its place. Maybe she had been his one, and with her gone, he had dropped into a world that was a dream.

He stayed alone, and mourned his loss. Longed to lay himself down by a brimming lake, and snuff out his life in the still waters that hid their secret so well, but never dared to.

Darling Ryar, he thought, and read the marks on the scroll. He knew enough of the old ritual language to understand it, but he could not speak it. He even knew the name of its author: who hadn't heard of Merlin? The spell was complex, and would need a number of ingredients which would take time to acquire.

No, he could not cast this tonight. Perhaps not tomorrow, nor for as long as days. How strange, that where years had once swarmed past like bees, now days crawled like larvae. He would have to transcribe it, line by ochre line, into mortal words, and a language he could speak. And then...

If he closed his eyes, he could see her moon-pale hair swishing as she played her music with such fondness, swaying so slightly and so temptingly. And the seashell shards in her eyes always seemed brighter when she was done, as her stare became wild and frothing with force as white water rapids. Yes, and Ryar had never known the way that even Fireblade would sit and watch her while she lured heaven to her, and made it song, never known how she could make something flicker in his heart, low and small though it was.

She had never known, but she would.

There was no room for logic and he pushed it away ruthlessly. Ignoring the doubts, and the fears, and the reasonable voice that said; your hands at her throat and her pulse pushing against your fingers, and you think there will be forgiveness? Too tired to run, and too loving to fight, and too empty to reason, and too...

Too good to change.

She could never change. But he had. He had to have; where once he had been fire, the element that he drew his power from, now he was only ashes.

He had been fire, and she, the thirteenth daughter of a thirteenth son, she had been water. There had been five of them, five elementals; he had been fire, and she water, and in a way, both had perished. Bhari had lived and breathed earth like the desert beast she was but who knew if she still lay interred in it, Hael had soared away wildly into the skies he loved and perhaps melded into the horizon as he had always sworn.

Kheo had been the arching ether, the indefinable, the inscrutable, a catalyst to the other four; not really one of them, the fifth, the last, the strangest. King of all Dragons and killed, he had heard, in the last battle.

Where the four had walked, all else ran.

Where the five had walked, all else died.

Until they had been divided in the war. Ryar had betrayed them all. And he had done what was his duty, and done what was his right, and for the first time, regretted.

Yet he would bring her back, and not recall those times and those people they had been. He would not think of what was lost, only what would be gained.

Only...

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar Redfern slept deeply, curiously vulnerable in whatever dreams moved his lips and flexed his hands. The moon was shut out by the thick curtains, and the world by the locked door. Only a clock flashed wolf-eye green in the dark, and if a photograph was crumpled on the floor, who would notice in the shadows?

In the light, it might have been a witch girl with hair as black as his own, bent over backwards in the arms of the boy who was stork-tall, and stork-pale, both of them younger and posing with imitation starlet smiles.

But it was dark.

Roads away, Lisa Ochai flipped through her sketchbook for a while, pausing on several pages, and began the skeleton of a new picture with long, loose lines of pencil. Wavy hair, and deep-set eyes, and too-prominent bones, and a mouth meant for smiles but surrendering to gloom. And then she snapped it shut, and lay back in a world that was neither hot nor cold, but indifferent since she had become a vampire.

Jepar Jubatus was curled up on the pillows, his soulmate still beside him, but her back turned to him. Her breathing even, easy to listen to in the dark but hard to bear. Even sleep was a wall between them. His eyes were open, and it was as though a piece of the night barricaded outside had crept in through them. He bowed his head, and scrunched up his body a little tighter, and eventually his breathing swished like the tide.

In the clearing, the remnants of the Pack who did not trail after the gliding moon huddled together under torn sleeping bags, among the dirt and the rubbish, some in fur-form, some in flesh. Amid the heaped bodies, Felicity Serafine had fallen asleep onto Cern's shoulder, much quieter than usual that evening, her coppery hair disarrayed and haloed about her strained face and a wolf tucked against her legs.

Cern had slept too, eventually, lying back with care so as not to wake her. He didn't even complain when Donna pushed a folded-up coat under his head for a pillow, and told him not to catch pneumonia, because now he'd decided to live, dying of the cold would be plain stupid.

In the small, neat guesthouse, Sandrine slept light and dreamlessly, a knife under her pillow and strapped to her leg under the covers. Her skin was beaded with perspiration in this unfamiliar heat, and took on the appearance of scales. Close to her goal, so close she could almost feel the kill in her hands.

She sighed in her sleep, and half-awoke to smile lazily at nothing at all but her own recollection.

Goodnight, dear prince.

And the man that bound them all...?

X - X - X - X - X

Blue Malefici was cross-legged on his living room floor, plucking at the strings of a guitar. Sleep had eluded him - perhaps the only thing that ever had - and now the low, mellow notes fitted into the night like stained glass in stone walls. His hands moved without haste, sure and searching, but he heard nothing of what he played. He was occupied with the cacophony that jangled and rattled in his head, jigsaw pieces of her thoughts.

Witch of mine...

Witch unwanted, witch uncalled for, witch of mine all the same. Ever questioning, never surrendering, and so, so entertaining. Of all the games and all the people he had played, Chatoya Irkil was the most challenging; luck ran with her like her shadow, and there was nothing on earth that could kill luck.

Blue made his own luck.

He had been making it so carefully now, carefully as a spider weaving a web. Barely visible ties, stronger than anything. But it required one last touch, one last perfect touch before he could let it blow away in the dawn, and strike at his prey. For his prey had to be subdued.

He got up silently, and stole out into the night. Ah, she fought like a cornered rat, his witch, with a fierce and blind instinct.

Cornered rats will fight. Poisoned rats...

Blue made his own luck.

X - X - X - X - X

She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Memoriess swirled in her mind, carrying her away from the soft nest of sleep, leaving her to edgy, thrumming awakening.

I'm shaking, she thought dumbly. I can't sleep...dear Goddess, what if they're waiting? The wolves will be there again, ready to attack me...

She sat up with a gasp, putting her hands over her face. She rocked for a moment, the motion somehow reassuring, while she tried to block away her fear. It was stupid. Irrational. Wolves couldn't come here; this was her sanctum, her safe place, her home.

"You're being stupid," she said aloud, rubbing the heels of her hands in her eyes. The pain helped her mind clear a little. "No one can get in here."

"Oh...I wouldn't go that far."

Somehow, she wasn't surprised. Why should she be? He never turned up when she expected him, and always appeared when it was most unsettling to her. Why should now be any different?

Chatoya looked up and stared at the dark silhouette of Blue Malefici. "You already have."

She wanted to switch the light on. The light would push away the darkness. Maybe he would disappear, like her darkest fears always did under the broiling sun.

But she knew he was real. No one in their right mind would hallucinate Blue.

"Sharp words." He glanced out to the night, smeared with dull stars and unlit by the moon. She should have heard him, Chatoya thought. If only he wasn't so inhumanly silent. He sat there, silhouetted against the night with a calm arrogance that made her want to kick him. "From a dull wit."

"Is there a reason why you're here, or is it just the next phase of your stalking diploma?" She reached for the knife under her pillow. Even when he wasn't moving, Blue managed to radiate menace.

His answer startled her. "I thought you might like to take a walk."

"A walk. I'm sorry, do I look like I'm called Rover?"

He was serious. Or at least, if he wasn't, it was buried deep under the vibrant gleam of his stare. "Witch of mine, I can think of far better things to call you."

"And I can think of far worse things to call you. Why are you here?"

"I repeat, I thought you might like a little exercise. I'd suggest we take it lying down, but I have the feeling you'd protest." The teasing starts of a smile edged his mouth, barely visible.

Not as much as I should be. "You thought right. Stop playing around...what do you really want?"

He shrugged. "Sleep seems to have abandoned me tonight. Every time I shut my eyes, I can hear your thoughts. It's...irritating."

She eyed him suspiciously, her hand closing around the blade. Good. She was that fraction safer now. "Maybe it's deliberate."

"Maybe is a dangerous game to play," he said. It sounded light, but from the way he slid onto his feet, nothing but an elegant shape of darkness, it had sparked something. Chatoya wished she didn't bait him so often.

Sometimes she really did ask for it.

"Imagine this," he continued, "Just maybe, there's a lady witch with her knife in her hand who'd love to put it through my heart."

"Maybe you don't have one."

He was slithering closer, watching her from the tilt of his head. Blue could stare like no one she had ever met, right through your eyes, into your soul until he dredged up the paltry secrets you thought you had hidden.

"A heart? Maybe, dear my lady, I don't. But if I have no heart...then maybe I can't be killed."

"No one's immortal." She gasped as his hand closed around her wrist.

His thoughts filled her like an alien sea, strange and cold, making her shudder at what lay coiled in the very depths of his mind. He was a puzzle of desire and murder and control. In Blue's mind, there were no maybes. No uncertainties.

When he let go, Blue was holding the knife and looking amused. "Chatoya Irkil," he said mildly. "How many knives do I have to take off you before you realise that stabbing me is not an option?"

She glared. "As many as it takes before one finds its way into your throat."

"Vicious," he drawled. "But this knife wouldn't kill me." She drew back, afraid, as he put the point to her throat, his hand perfectly steady. "You, however...I could kill you."

She met his eyes, curling her hand into fists to stop them shaking. "Maybe you won't."

"Maybe," he whispered, "is a dangerous game to play." And then he drew the knife back, and with one gesture and a burst of dragonfire crackling statically in the air, melted it into a sphere. "And maybe I thought you could use some air. Or would you rather lie in the dark and pray for the nightmares to go away?"

He was unnerving her. As always. Still, Chatoya thought, at least she was getting better at not showing it. "Why would I go anywhere with you?"

His eyes flared like knots of electricity, illuminating the clear lines of his face. "Even I'm better than the wolves." His smile had no humour to it. "Face it...if I wanted to kill you, I could. If I didn't mind my own untimely demise. What can I do to you?"

She choked back a scornful laugh. "Torture me hideously?"

The smile warmed a fraction, like honey in the sun. "I see no need to torture you. You do such a good job yourself. You wrap yourself in pain, Chatoya Irkil, and one day, you won't be able to struggle free."

Squinting at him didn't make his expression any easier to read. Still impassive, still cold and distant. Still a threat to her safety and sanity. And yet...she was intrigued. It made Chatoya squirm to even admit it, but she had to wonder what he wanted with her. Curiosity would get her every time.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

_I am too connected to you to  
Slip away, to fade away.  
Days away I still feel you  
Touching me, changing me,  
And considerately killing me._


	23. Chapter Twenty Two

Thank you to so much to everyone who commented last time :-) Look! This part is practically on time. Thank you to all these amazing angels:

**Girltype, Cliodhna, Katherine, Danel, Mandy, DLJewel, Sianna, Eleyne, Blaze, Crimson Tears, Arukara, Orange, Jello Ink, Lavender12, Dianna, Lotty, Leopardess, Rain, Izzy, Midnight Haze, Dark Princess, Kalika, Kendal, Katherine, Dragonwriter **and last but by no means least, the fabulous **KensingtonGold**.

I'd adore hearing your thoughts.

Lyrics come from _Died In Your Arms_ by Cutting Crew (Album: Broadcast). Thank you for reading!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Two**

_I keep looking for something I can't get  
Broken hearts lie all around me  
And I don't see an easy way to get out of this_

Salvaje Chusson glared after the car as it drove off in a spray of dust. The Elders of this place had been accommodating, particularly after the large cheque he wrote them. Their morals - like so many - became rather more elastic when you applied a few zeros. Even so, they couldn't wait to hurl him onto the road to find his own shelter until the sun inched up.

There was a faint sheen to his skin even in this mild night; the car had been stuffy, and the miles long. He had wanted to run, to slide into coyote form and streak across the desert that tugged at his soul like a lodestone. But he needed the compliance of Ryars Valley's Elders to steal in, and meet this strange lady who claimed Pursang as her own.

He was all warmth and health to look at, this slight coyote shapeshifter; in daylight, his skin would have been a warm golden haze, olive-oil smooth and an echo of his eyes which were aglow in the gloom. His dark hair was just as warm, honey and chocolate tousled into a sinful mess. He was all warmth and health.

Inside, Vaje was frozen through and decaying.

He'd known it for years, and it no longer stirred him. He didn't really live, but he existed and for now, until he could see a way from the pit he was penned in, it was enough. There was revenge, and death, bittersweet on his hands, and more than memories.

Pursang...god, how had he got into this rut? He'd have fought them without mercy once, shredded them like violets. It had been different, then, when he had had a soulmate, a wife, a friend who knew his heart's every pulse, and they were all the same person.

Life had been satisfying then. She'd been easy to love, the only easy thing in a life hard as a leper's luck. There had been a reason to put up with human prejudice and the hatred of his own kind.

But then his wife died trying to keep a Nightworld monster from their son. All their love and all their fearlessness meant nothing when they were side by side in the damp earth's clutch for worms to chew on.

And when he learned at last that the cause was Nightfire, he'd gone to them, burning with vengeance, burning with the only thing that could keep him alive.

They'd looked at him without pity, and offered him no recompense, nor anything that could fill the throne in that chamber with no doors and no windows where she had once sat. They had offered him only murder, and a life among them.

He'd refused, but he had nowhere to return to with her gone, and every year in the deep and iron midwinter they would come to Salvaje Chusson with their offer, and every year he would refuse.

Year after year after year, until they sent the right person to ask the right question at the right time, and Vaje became what he had once loathed. And now - he was here.

He threw open his mind, spreading it like a net over this place. His heartbeat softened and slowed, until it was no longer a woodpecker hammering on his senses.

God, this place was steeped in magic, lying with a moon-like pallor across the hills and the valley, and even the little town. Hundreds - no, thousands - of minds in sleeping, oblivious as birds in the sky unaware they flew, a few in waking; too vague to make out, and-

Wait. Someone stronger; a mind-touch he knew. That fizzing, crackling knot of lightning that marked Blue Malefici, cold and corrupt and strong enough to stand out from the throng. Over by a place where the magic ran deeper, a space flushed with power, and the tinny tingle that meant water.

Another mind was there too, but this one unfamiliar if almost as strong. A warmth radiated from it that drew Vaje, warm as grass in the sun and a deep true green. Whoever...she, yes she, was, her thoughts were delightfully tangled and complex as a cloud forest, soaked with the same magic as the place itself.

He wondered if she was the lady he'd come to see. What other witch would be crazy enough or fearless enough to go out alone with Malefici and stand any chance of coming back alive?

The thought brought a twinge of sadness, hitting an old bruise. Memories of a girl who had been crazy enough or fearless enough to throw herself in his path. The girl had longed melted into dirt and dust, but his recollections painted her anew each day.

If this witch could lead - then let her.

And as he melted away towards those firework minds, Vaje knew he would discover if she could.

X - X - X - X - X

The roads were deserted at night, and even the glare of the streetlights seemed thin and cold to Chatoya. He walked beside her, saying not a word. He strolled as though it were a summer's morning, and it was a meadow they walked in, not the dangerous chill of Ryars Valley in the evensong.

"Where are we going?" she repeated, struggling to match her pace to his.

A keen glance. "You told me that I had no feelings. I hardly think that's true." His voice was bored. Squinting at his face, she saw the same expression.

"You once told me you would rip my soul in two," she answered. "Are you keeping your promise?"

"Of course." He looked at her directly, his eyes unreadable abysses. "I'm always keeping my promise, Chatoya Irkil."

"Why can't you call me by my first name?" she said angrily. "It's always 'witch of mine' or 'Chatoya Irkil'. You're hiding behind courtesy."

The gritty road crunched, and she stumbled. He didn't help. "Courtesy or intimacy - it's your choice."

"Not right now, it isn't," muttered Chatoya, kicking at a stone. The buzz of his thoughts had dulled to a mere rustle, though still the odd sound caught and confused her. "All I've heard all day is _you_."

"Count yourself lucky, then," he remarked. "I've had the misfortune to hear _you_ all day. And I assume it's you giving me this wretched headache."

"Figuratively or literally?" she said sweetly, though the words perturbed her. She had had the beginnings of a world-class headache slathered along her temples earlier. "Maybe I should take up self-mutilation."

"It could only be an improvement."

The barb didn't even pierce her armour. Throwing words wasn't the danger any longer; it was knives she was looking out for. "On you - certainly."

He turned his head, and she saw the bow of his mouth curve. "Touché. Ah. We're here."

Here. Where was here? Just another stretch of road, screened by trees. "Oh good. I'm glad I didn't go out in the blistering cold for nothing."

He turned to her and stared. As always, it silenced her. Yet this time, she held his eyes, though it made her soul shudder to do so. There was nothing human in his eyes. No compassion. No mercy. No love, nor even hate. But she looked deep into those things, and refused to bow beneath them, though they were mesmerizing, and numbed her from the marrow outwards.

"Shut your eyes."

Had he gone round the twist? "What?"

"Shut your eyes."

"Why? What are you going to do?"

Blue cupped her chin, and his hands had the warmth his eyes did not. "Scream in sheer fury in a minute, I suspect." Unnerved, for his sizzling thoughts had hushed, she reached for his mind to find it fortified and bleak. "Aren't you at all curious, witch of mine? It seems to have brought you here."

Was he serious? What if it was another lie?

If he lies, he lies. What can he do to you? He has no hold over you...all he has is a whisper of a promise, and that's nothing at all. He can only hurt you if you let him, and you won't. There is too much blood between you.

Her eyes fell shut almost without her consent. "Keep them closed," he ordered and then picked her up. Puzzled, Chatoya obeyed. He had carried her once before, but she had been afraid then. She was afraid now, but the fear was different. It was a fear of herself as well as of him.

He can only hurt you if you let him, and you won't.

She was warm in his arms, and she had no fear he would drop her. That wasn't his style. She kept her eyes closed, and let her head settle into the curve of his neck. She could hear his heart...yes, he had one, beating slow and steady as if he didn't carry her weight.

Strange sounds like water lapped the air as he walked, ending a silence near sacred. Then without warning, dragonfire tickled over her skin. It felt alien, wild and hot, something that should not be near her.

"I'm going to put you down," he said, voice low in her ear, fitting deed to words. Her body tingled with dragonfire, though a strange weight reached from her feet to her knees. "Look down, and open your eyes."

She obeyed...and gasped.

She was standing in the sky. A sky that moved and breathed and lived as surely as she did. Around her feet, stars darted and trailed glimmers of hazy turquoise, amethyst and jade lights. And she looked up, and there lay a different sky, still and sombre, its stars white and fixed.

"What...what..." It took her breath away. She didn't think she would ever see anything as beautiful as standing between two heavens, with constellations drifting around her feet.

Beside her, he leaned forwards, cupping his hands into the sky...no, it was water, though the dragonfire kept her from feeling the chill. As a tiny star flitted into the bowl his cupped palms made, he lifted them, and she saw what he had caught.

It was a faerie.

She had heard of these ancient water elementals, knew they existed. But not here. Surely not here.

But it was, a tiny creature with translucent wings, and eyes that squinted dazedly at them. Had it been human, its arms and legs would have been too long, and its hair, longer than it, an unnatural blue, but here in a night of secrets, it was perfect.

He freed the creature and turned to look at her. "I've always appreciated beauty," he murmured. "And this place is more beautiful than most."

"It's old magic," she found the words to say. "It brings strange creatures here."

He looked at her, not through her or into her - at her. "Yes, we are here."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Wasn't it?" He shrugged. She could only watch him, more confused than ever. "What? Have I upset your idea of the ruthless killer yet again? It's easier for you if everything is black and white, isn't it? Then you can hate me, and pretend that I'm evil, and that I'm just some empty rotting thing. I'm not. I have feelings. For the most part, I keep them to myself, but it doesn't mean I'm not moved occasionally, witch of mine."

"Why do you call me that?" she whispered, as she had before.

That treacherous smile glittered like hope. "I thought you might appreciate it more than 'yo bitch'."

"That's not what I mean. You won't call me by name."

"And you can't call me by mine," he pointed out evenly. "I can say your name...but you have never said mine. You can't even look at me without being afraid."

She met his stare then, just to prove him wrong...and realised he was right. "Isn't that how you want it?"

"It's how I made it," was the cool answer. "I was merely stating a fact. You, on the other hand, were asking questions."

She turned away from the soft derision in his voice to watch the tiny rainbow lights of the faeries, walking deeper into the water. It was up to her waist now, but the chill didn't touch her. "You don't like questions."

"Not so. They have a place and a time. As does everything."

"Yeah," Chatoya muttered. "Not here and not now."

She heard the swish of the water. "Questions, perhaps." She was surprised when his arms curled round her, but pleasantly so. In this unfettered night, there was only the two of them; no longer bounded by rules or morals or other people. "Other things...right here, and right now."

"What things?" she said, her voice so quiet that a whisper would have seemed a shout. She let her hands drift onto his, and relaxed a little, though her instincts warned that even the tiger's smile still showed its teeth.

"Oh, this and that." Was Blue being playful? She couldn't see it. But she felt it as he kissed her neck softly. "This..." and she twisted round to face him, and kiss him like she had that night at the prom, with the dark surrounding them and the ethereal lights sparkling in the obsidian lake. "...and that," he murmured.

The waters seemed to leap with light, and she stared as the faeries flung themselves out of the water in a delightful, quicksilver dance. It was as though a rainbow had shattered and taken wing.

"They're so beautiful," she breathed, inadvertently echoing his own words to her. Her face was confused, her hair a liquid black fall. This enchantment...how could someone like Blue know about this place?

He lowered his head to breathe in the scent of her skin, and stilled. He had seen the marks on her neck, yet said nothing - and that perhaps, was worst of all. Nothing to do but wait as he looked at her. Silence stretching like a guitar string, the note rising sharp and thin.

"But useless," he murmured in the end, his tones a spill of murky elixir. "Like so many things."

"Why do you have to be so cynical?" she demanded, twinges of anger biting at her. "Can't something be beautiful without a purpose?"

"Certainly," he replied, his knuckles brushing her cheek. It felt as if faeries danced under her skin, lighting her with sprays of crystal colours. "But such creatures are often destroyed."

"By people like you," she said without thinking, anger splintering lightning-swift in her eyes. It was true and cruel, and she regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.

He caught one of the slender beings easily, closing his fist around it. "Very pretty," he said dryly, "and they glow bright enough, but they don't burn." His eyes were dark and chill as the grave. "Just like you. There's no danger about you, witch of mine...so you should be careful about using words as a weapon."

"Better words than knives," she said sharply, unable to stop herself. She couldn't let him stand there as though he was better than her. "My weapons don't kill people."

His voice was freezing, colder even than the lake's depths. "Oh, was roasting that wolf just an accident?"

She slapped him, not even caring about the whiplash mind-link that flared briefly.

That had been three years ago, three years, damn him! She was shaking with fury. "Was killing my twin?"

"Oh, your revolting brother," snapped Blue. There was tension in his voice that she had never heard. "Haven't you dealt with that yet? Yes, I killed him, no, I am not sorry, yes, I did earn a hefty amount of money, no, I do not give a damn about anyone else. I think that covers the rest of this discussion."

"It hasn't even started," she hissed.

He didn't so much as blink, but she yelped at the stabbing shock of cold as the dragonfire shield about her vanished. She couldn't stand, every muscle was cramping and there was nothing, no one to help her...

"It just finished," he said, his voice offhand and emotionless again.

She fell, helpless, because her screaming muscles wouldn't hold her up, the cold reaching every part of her body. The water pressed in on her like stone: she couldn't breathe, couldn't stand, couldn't do anything but endure.

She knew he had turned and walked away, but she didn't care. Her eyes were open, but burning with pain and all around she saw pretty, flickering lights and wondered dimly if they were faeries or just death. Numbness creeping over her, but she was sinking, sinking, her lungs two pits of acid because soon she would have to take that first, deadly breath of lakewater.

How could you, she thought at him, but she couldn't even reach out to his mind. No need; it was a serpentine twine in her own. Why do you have to hurt me? I thought you didn't take the easy way out.

And then her lungs gave out, and incredibly spiky pain jabbed her chest, pain that soon dimmed and faded like the world did.

He can only hurt you if you let him, and you just did.

X - X - X - X - X

One step onto land, and a strange sense of peace...

Her voice smashed through his shields like a barrage of bullets, shattering and loud and overwhelming. Blue shuddered, stumbling. For a moment, his body wasn't his, was heavy and burning, and cold at the same time.

It vanished, and he drew a deep breath, and took another step away-

This time, it was louder, and a fireball exploded in his chest, her voice all around him, hacking at him like his family so often had on those long, lethal hunts. The world about him receded, and for the first time in his life, Blue understood what it meant to be without superhuman strength, without power, without anything but the knowledge you were breakable and insubstantial as a cobweb.

The stars spun above him in a dizzying whirl, and seemed to become wispy aquamarine lights that flitted and danced before his vision. He realised that he was gasping for breath in a world filled with air.

Willpower. That was all it took. Push it away, push it back though it weighs more than broken dreams and borrowed time; he felt the night flow back in on him, until the stars were still chips of white, until he thought his heart would burst into scarlet pulp with the effort. Her voice ebbed away in a glorious swansong, leaving him alone at last, alone and fre-

It was as if their souls had collided, and the shock of it knocked him to his knees. Cold, a great cold and moving rush about him - and spreading into his lungs, wide and icy. This was ridiculous! Blue Malefici had never surrendered to anything, or anyone, and he wouldn't let some

(Hecanonlyhurtyo uifyoulethimand youjustdid.)

goddamned

('tknownow)

crafty

(andisitmeorisit youorisitusandw hocantell?)

witch

(juststopitstopitcan'tyouseeweneedeachother)

And somehow, he meant to say best him. But the thought that eased from his consciousness, pushing through the drowning darkness like a string of bubbles, was:

Die.

Even with that thought, the pressure lessened, and Blue could tell his thoughts from hers again. And he knew very well that this infernal link was manipulating him into this, yet he also knew with far more conviction - now he knew he had never truly believed it before, for he was Bane Malefici, invincible, invulnerable, incredible - that her death would mean his.

"Hell!" A voice he knew, tinged with a curious accent. It was a voice that sounded as if it had learned English in Shakespearian times, and indeed, had. "Malefici? What was that?"

He got up, and an ominous tightness in his mind, like the air before a storm, warned him that any kind of delay would result in a slow death from drowning, on dry land if needs be.

"Nice of you to turn up, Chusson," he said flatly, without a glance in the coyote's direction. His legs felt unusually leaden, and as he stepped into the water, realised that the dragonfire that had bubbled under his skin so long was useless. All his power was draining away from him, and yes, he knew where to - into her, keeping her alive. "Feel like saving a drowning girl?"

"To do what with her?" Footsteps behind him, half loping to catch up with Blue. "Hey! Where'd that witch go who was-_she's in the lake_? And you put her in there? And you want me to help you get her out? What the hell is this, some kind of perverse bungee killing?"

The water was up to his knees, and far colder than he had realised. Salvaje Chusson, he recalled dimly, had a code of honour. He believed in killing quick, in the execution, not the murder. There was a peculiar streak of justice in him that not even Pursang and Nightfire in all their almighty corruption had been able to drive out.

"She's Pursang's new head," Blue told him, and heard the yelp as Vaje stepped into the glacial water. "Watch out, it's a little nippy."

"Nippy?" the incensed voice came back. "_Nippy_? This is about as nippy as a vampire in an abattoir! If you've managed to kill her then why are you saving her? She ain't going to last long in Pursang..."

"Because," Blue lied patiently, grimacing at the thought that he would probably have to make this explanation to every single dim-witted idiot who'd climbed up Pursang's greased ladder of authority to the top, "she's not quite the fool she appears. She's cast a rather vexing little enchantment that ties my life to hers. She dies...I die."

There was a moment of awed silence. "Well, bugger me," Vaje said finally. "Been a long time since anyone got the drop on you, hasn't it?" He gave a bark of laughter. Blue knew without glancing around that the coyote would be wearing a smile of approval. "Maybe I'll be polite around this lady."

Blue was listening to the swansong in his mind, very faint now, trying to locate her. Just...there.

He ducked under the water, ignoring the shooting stars of faeries. His hands found the clammy smoothness of flesh. The pressure in his chest was tightening again, but it vanished as he stood up in the water, dripping, with Chatoya Irkil in his arms. Her hair was a black, heavy curtain, but she was surprisingly light.

And not at all to his surprise, the moment he got her out of the water, she started breathing again, and coughed up lakewater, twisting in his grip. Amazing recovery, Blue thought sourly, while his powers flowed back under his skin like a warming glow. Killing her, obviously, is not an option. Particularly not anymore, as she can hear my every waking thought when we're not touching.

"Put me down," she croaked, and gave him a good elbow in the ribs.

"I thought I just tried that," he muttered under his breath, and unceremoniously dropped her on dry land. "You're rather resilient, witch of mine."

Velvet eyes stared at him, stubborn, her will stronger than her trembling body. "I thought we'd discussed this spontaneously trying to kill me thing."

Blue gave her his most angelic, and undoubtedly most irritating smile. "What actually happened was you asked me not to, and I ignored you. However I have no urge to repeat the experiment."

The witch wrung out her hair with hands that had no strength; a few drops slid through the air, but she seemed near-boneless.

"You're the new boss?" Vaje said, staring at her with unabashed fascination. Chatoya turned slowly, as if she hadn't recognised his presence, and squinted in the dark at the man before her. "You don't look like you could hurt a fly."

Blue refrained from saying that a crippled, wingless fly could probably have knocked her flat, and shrugged. "People rarely are what they seem. Your wife, I believe, was reputed to be stronger than iron." He watched for the flicker of pain in Vaje's eyes, the knife sliding in neatly, and added, "Died with her throat torn out, didn't she?"

There. The coyote's face contorted. Six hundred years, and the grief was still pouring forth; still there to be used, still there to prod Salvaje Chusson where he would. And while both of them were off-guard, Blue introduced them, and waited for the reactions.

"Chusson?" his witch said, and he narrowed his eyes at the stark black marks on her neck. Yes, he had a fairly good idea of who had done that, and an even better idea of what to do about it. "As in..."

"As in," Vaje confirmed sharply, and stepped closer to sniff at her. "Irkil? The weather witches? The nice ones?"

"Do have fun," purred Blue, enjoying the mistrust they were eyeing each other with. "And if you must, Salvaje - manhandle her with care."

As he sauntered off, vaguely disturbed by the night's events and this strengthening soulmate link, he missed the last intriguing piece of conversation.

X - X - X - X - X

The shapeshifter was staring at her in a very thoughtful way. Chatoya knew she had to look dreadful, a bedraggled, half-frozen mess, and also knew that she had to pretend she didn't feel it.

"By all the gods, how'd something like you end up messing around with something like him?" he demanded in a voice rough as gravel.

"Desperate times make for strange bedfellows," she muttered darkly.

His eyebrows hiked up. "Literally or metaphorically?" He paused, and then shrugged slightly. "Though if I may say so, either way you're going to be screwed."

I hope not, she thought, terribly drained and terribly aching. Ignoring the comment, she glanced at the small bag he was carrying. And his dishevelled state; soaked from the knees down, though she herself felt like a block of ice. "I suppose you want somewhere to stay."

"And to change," he said dryly. "I'd prefer not to get acute hypothermia, and I'm pretty certain you will if we stay here much longer. Hey-" he added as she turned, and gave her a feral grin. "I like your style. I've never seen anyone take on Blue Malefici and come out alive. That's almost winning."

Is it? she thought. Then why does it feel so much like losing?

_Oh, I just died in your arms tonight  
It must've been something you said  
I just died in your arms tonight  
Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight  
It must've been some kind of kiss  
I should have walked away, I should have walked away_


	24. Chapter Twenty Three

Much love and lollipops to all of ye angels who reviewed last time round! Thanks to:

**Queen Kat, Mandy, DLJewel, Katherine, Sianna, LadyNite, Blaze, Dianna, Kristy, Jello Ink, Leopardess, Midnight Haze, Kelly, Orange, Glare, Nicola, IC Dragons, Sylvia **and last, the awesome **On Faith**.

Comments are adored, pored over, cheered, revered and occasionally feared, adulated, venerated, assimilated, laminated, acclaimed, framed and simply treasured. I cherish hearing what you think, both comments and criticisms - please send it my wicked way!

The lyrics are from_ Dangerous Type _by Letters to Cleo (Album: Why Did We Do That?)

I hope you enjoy reading!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Three**

_Inside angel, always upset  
Keeps on forgetting that we ever met  
Can I bring you out in the light?  
My curiosity's got me tonight_

Chatoya spent a sleepless night listening to the ever-irritating drone of Blue Malefici in her head, shivering under the arctic blast that he was. Something in his mind had picked up to a near-frenetic pace, until she wanted to cry out at the maddening, intrusive sound.

And just as she was beginning to drop off with dawn prying open her curtains, her head under her pillow and her body slumped into near-blissful relaxation-

"Oh my god, who are _you_?" Lisa screamed from outside, the last word rising so sharply that at the end of it, Chatoya was sure that only dogs could hear her. The noise jolted her upright, her sleep-fuddled mind fumbling for an explanation.

Oh Goddess, she'd let that shapeshifter sleep on the couch, hadn't she? And left him a towel, pointed out the shower and the kitchen and-

"Toya!" The vampire's voice was a furious shriek now. Chatoya scrabbled out of bed, searching blindly for clothes, hoping she didn't reek too much of the lakewater, hoping that Blue would become suddenly comatose and shut up. "Toya, there's a _flasher_ in our house!"

"If you'd just listen-" she heard the oddly accented voice begin.

There was a cry of "Get out!" and a series of deafening thumps.

She galloped out of her room and onto the landing to discover Lisa pinned to the floor by a damp shapeshifter who was wearing only a towel and an incensed expression. His hair was bristled and gleaming, water beading his skin. His hands were tense as he tried to keep the enraged vampire from giving him what would probably be the mafia equivalent of wash and go.

Both of them saw her, and Chatoya had to fight to stop from laughing.

"She walked right in on me-"

"He was in our bathroom, completely _naked_-"

She had to cover her mouth to stop the grin from showing. The shapeshifter was dripping water on Lisa, who had a distinctly alarming set to her mouth. The beads in her braided hair clicked on the panelling as she tussled with him.

Vaje Chusson glared down at the made vampire, his eyes glittering. His voice was a near-growl. "I was having a shower! I don't usually take them fully clothed-"

The African girl squirmed, obviously trying to get a hand free to pummel him. "Well, do you usually walk into other people's houses and take them?"

"When I'm staying there, yes! Don't you ever _knock_?" He slammed her shoulders back against the floor. "Don't even think about it, Peeping Thomasina."

"Staying here?" The made vampire stopped struggling, and rolled her head to stare at Chatoya.

Uh oh. There were a limited number of ways she could explain the overnight appearance of a rather ravishing shapeshifter, and none of them were going to throw her into a good light.

Lisa's voice was sliding up to ultrasonic quality. "He's staying here?"

She nodded, and Lisa's brows shot up. The vampire had water on her cheeks and on her clothes, but she hardly seemed to notice as she pushed at the shapeshifter absently. He let her up, watching her with understandable wariness.

"He," and she pointed at a somewhat dishevelled Vaje. "Is staying," she pointed at the floor. "Here."

"Sharp, isn't she?" he remarked to the air. "Good job you're pretty, girl, 'cause there's not much going for you upstairs."

A pair of furious brown eyes swung to him, and Lisa took a step forward. "One more word," she said calmly, a corner of her mouth flicking up in a way that wasn't at all pleasant, "and you lose that towel and all your remaining dignity."

"I lose the towel," countered the coyote, and Chatoya looked from one to the other and thought; surely not. "And you'll lose a limb."

"Yeah? Well, you'll lose a member," she drawled pointedly, and just as the shapeshifter opened his mouth for a retort, Chatoya jumped in, uncertain whether to be amused or worried.

"Please! Can you just...call a truce?" She saw their eyes clash, metal with wood, and something flickered between them. She saw their similarities keenly then – a sense of primeval strength tightly harnessed, of a surface that did not show the depths. "Lisa, this is Vaje. He's..."

"A friend of the family," Vaje snapped shortly. "I'm her godfather."

The lie was so preposterous, Chatoya nearly choked. Her parents had been strictly conservative, and the chances of them letting someone like Vaje, in all his bronze and biting glory, near any of their family, was somewhat remote. Still, Lisa didn't know that.

Lisa gave him a scathing and sweeping look that took him in from the scruffy hair to the bare feet. "Godfather."

"Yeah," he declared. "Part One. The best, naturally. Parts Two, Three and Four will be along shortly, but are all inferior imitations."

Lisa smiled reluctantly. Without knowing it, Vaje had struck exactly the right note. And Goddess knew he was certainly attractive, even when he was fuming and sniping. After, she amended mentally, they got over the bathroom incident.

"You have four godfathers?" Lisa turned to her, her tones claiming that she believed this not at all, but she wasn't going to argue it in front of Vaje. "Four? I know three is traditional for witches, but four?"

"One for luck," Vaje elucidated with a stinging sweetness that said enquiry further might lead to another bout of wrestling.

"After you, she'd need it," muttered the vampire, but she subsided with a we'll-talk-about-this-later glance. "Are you done in the bathroom?"

"Are you going to walk in on me again?"

Chatoya could read Lisa like a book, and there was that little dimple in her cheek that said maybe she wouldn't mind too much. "No," the made vampire murmured. "And your towel's slipping."

He gave her a glare and stalked into the bathroom. The door slammed firmly, and Lisa let out her breath in a gush.

"Don't tell me who he really is," she ordered, eyes still trained on the door. "I don't want to know. Just - is he dangerous? And - are there really another three...godfathers?"

"He's one of Dark's, I think. He's here to protect me," Chatoya revealed. It was close enough to true; he was Pursang, he was under her orders and if she wanted protection, he was obliged to give it. "He is dangerous...but not to us - and there are another three. They're here to safeguard us all, after...Jal."

I'm lying, she thought, and knew Lisa would believe it because it was scudding along the lines of truth. I know it's the most stupid thing on earth I could possibly do, but I'm doing it as easily as Blue might.

Lisa nodded, her shoulders relaxing. "Fine." She watched the door in a dangerously thoughtful way. "Are they all as...as..."

"As?"

"Damn good-looking?" A wicked smile curved her mouth, and for the first time, she looked her old self, a self she hadn't been since Cern's soulmate had died, and something in Cern had died. The witch and the vampire had always been close, and Chatoya knew it had hit Lisa hard.

"Probably," Chatoya allowed. "They're all Nightworld."

"Chusson, huh?" Lisa murmured softly, and a line formed on her brow. "The name sounds familiar."

Chatoya shrugged. "Nothing to worry about," she answered, and knew it to be another lie.

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar Redfern was just settling down to do some serious brooding, not to mention indulging in a wash of self-pity and sullenness when the doorbell rang. He was alone in the house; Jepar had stayed over at Tali's last night, while Thom was grimly pursuing Kirsty, who had vanished to wreak havoc elsewhere in the valley.

He flung the door opened to find no one there, and stomped back into the lounge feeling decidedly murderous. Admittedly, this was nothing new, more a sort of family hand-me-down, rather like buck teeth and heart trouble, but his temper was rapidly reaching boiling point.

He stopped short as he found Blue sitting in the lounge, sprawled on one of the sofas with his eyes agleam. His familiar indifferent smile played about his mouth, and though he held no knife, no gun at all, Cougar knew that his brother could cut him deeper and kill him easier than anyone else on the planet.

Blue used people's own natures against them.

He had always been perceptive; as a child, Blue had been the one who knew which words would throw a simmering argument into a blazing inferno. He knew which smile would twist his older sisters round his little finger, and which glance would frighten others into submission.

"Oh, if it isn't my little brother - or should that be bother? I suppose you've got another knife you'd like to stick in my back," Cougar snapped flatly. He was in no mood to be messed about by Blue. "Which is it today? Ruby? Sandrine? Mother?"

"Chatoya Irkil," Blue purred, the smile widening into radiance. He didn't move, but simply stared up, and his eyes held the turbulence of a stormy sea. They were unreadable and empty, and bruising in their force.

Cougar felt his insides freeze, and wondered frantically just what Blue knew.

"What about her?" he answered.

The smile took on a more pleasant tilt as Blue's fangs gleamed. "Tastes good, doesn't she?"

Cougar stayed silent. So this was what it was about? Oh yes, he remembered how someone had dared to sample one of Blue's meals back on the enclave - and how little of them there had been left to bury. Blue had never had many possessions so instead, he kept people.

"But not, I think, yours to taste."

He couldn't stop the rage that laced his tone like cyanide. "Not yours, either."

"Wrong."

God, anger was good in his veins, warming as coffee on a cold morning. Anger he hadn't let roll free in days, weeks, months, years. Anger that was sinking into a slow churning inky black, anger that could murder and feel no regret.

"She's not a thing," Cougar hissed, each word a spearing jab. "Toya is a person, and she doesn't deserve you as a soulmate, you bloody viper. She doesn't deserve to be saddled with a monster like you for the rest of her life."

Something Blue's stance changed indefinably. He was suspended between stillness and strike, a breath from either. "A monster?" For a moment, he seemed that scornful child that Cougar had managed to loathe and love at the same time. "Maybe I am. But I don't hide from what I am. I don't pretend that I don't love seeing these quivering mortals powerless, I don't pretend that their blood isn't sweet to drink, and sweeter to steal. I don't pretend that I can live this staid, empty suburban life."

Blue got to his feet in one effortless motion.

The words were flung at Cougar like grapnels that hooked him and drew him in.

"I accept what I am," his brother drawled into the patient silence.

"So do I," Cougar spat at him, but knew the fury was overwhelming him, taking him over like it always did; and he was letting it, like he used to. All he wanted - all he needed - was to forget about the goddamn consequences, and forget about his friends and his family and his stupid futile love.

"Do you?" A lift of shoulder that should have been scarred or bowed from a childhood harsh and horrific. "I don't think so. You don't know what you are. Look at you! Wrapped up with vermin, fighting your own kind. Fighting your own family."

His voice was compelling, and in it Cougar thought for an instant he could hear the vermin screaming and sobbing, as if Blue had devoured their very souls when he pilfered their lives.

God, oh god, he had forgotten this feeling, this sense of near-floating high on a wave of emotion. No need for control, because you only needed control when you needed to be able to stop. But who could stop this? Who?

"You've forgotten yourself." The words oozed in, and the cadence of that voice familiar as it had been a decade ago, when Cougar's father had hit him that first time, and Blue had been the only one of his six siblings to offer anything but contempt and amusement.

"No," Cougar muttered, trying to shake it off.

"Yes. You've forgotten what you are. You've tried to pretend that you can be different, you've tried to block out the calling of your blood. But it's wrong; you know it's always been wrong. You can't deal with vermin - how can they possibly understand you? They fear you."

The world seemed hardly real; this cosy, comfortable little house, with its vermin pictures, vermin sentimentality scattered all about.

"You've always known..."

He fought, and tried to remember what existed beyond the anger, but he could only think: she didn't want me. I loved her, I would have walked through poisoned worlds and lava for her. I gave her everything I was and...

This strange sense of falling, falling, falling.

She

Didn't

Want

Me.

No one could fight this. No one could have any kind of defence against the rage that crashed through him. And he didn't want to fight anymore. He didn't want to feel the pain, and the rejection and the dull, insipid safety of vermin life any longer.

And through that flood came the delighted, darkling tones of his brother.

"You're just like me."

And he was alone, but it made no difference; he had always been alone, and he would always be but it didn't matter when there was this to surrender to.

_You've tried to pretend that you can be different, you've tried to block out the calling of your blood._

Was this how Jallakri ap Ganra had felt when she tore out Ruby's throat? Was this how Blue felt as he slid through his icy, blood-slick world? Was this what power meant?

_They fear you._

Yes, he thought, standing and trembling in the midst of that homely room, yet not at all at home. I know that. I've always known.

Maybe I should give them

(her)

reason.

X - X - X - X - X

"Crap," Lisa muttered, and stared at the sad pile of undercooked batter on the floor. "Maybe it's the ingredients."

"Maybe you're just lousy at cooking, lady," Vaje Chusson hinted, and stepped back at the ferocious glower the girl turned on him. Pretty girl, he thought, admiring her long shapely limbs, and the flawless skin that had the velvet texture of melted chocolate. Pretty crazy too, and pretty fast.

"Wait till you taste my cannelloni." She glanced at the oven, where the pasta dish was cooking.

"About a hundred years would be long enough," he said dryly, and matched his words with a wry grin so she wouldn't hurt him. He had to admit, when she'd attacked him, his shoulder had definitely popped out of joint.

She arched an eyebrow, plucked to perfection, and waved the spatula at him with a definite air of menace. "Be nice to me, coyote boy. I could spread some very incriminating rumours about you."

He chuckled, and had to admit he liked this made vampire's boldness. He'd liked Chatoya Irkil too, liked the way she'd not complained about his presence, liked the way she had handled Malefici. A witch, and she'd put Malefici in a pinch.

Thinking of witches made him think of Faith Tacarnan back in Vegas, though she was probably long gone by now, onto the next killing. Beautiful, if not the sweet smiling thing she had been when he'd met her six hundred years back. Beautiful, and bitter.

She's convinced him to join Pursang in the end; a bolt from the blue, or from Blue at any rate. The right person, the last remnant of his lost life and lost wife, the right time; the day she had died and the world had plunged into darkness. And the right question.

Someone touched his shoulder-

He reacted instinctively, and Lisa was locked into his grip with his arm about her throat. Her breath stayed even, slow, though her heartbeat lashed wildly.

He let go, and muttered an apology. If he could have seen himself, he might have understood why she had dared touch him; the aristocrat's face that contrasted so sharply with the rough voice had been distant and hurting, taut with times gone.

"I sense a stroll down Memory Lane." She tapped her neck gingerly. "Wolves waiting in the shadows?"

"Ah, what do you know of shadows?" Vaje flicked his fingers. "Look at you, lady. You're a kid. What have you got to be afraid of?"

A curious expression drifted over her face. He'd been wrong to call her a pretty girl, he thought. The eyes held a lovely clear shade of brown, and her mouth was shaped and smiling, but twisted wrongly. The way she looked at him made him feel a child again, though if he were mortal he'd not even be dust now.

"I'm not as young as I look," was all she said, then bent down to scrape the pancake from the floor. "So, godfather, Toya tells me you're here to protect us."

Was that the lie she was spinning? Aye, he could see why she'd not want this girl to know about Pursang. There was something relentless in her he didn't like. A fiery determination that could make her very dangerous if she was pushed.

Little did he know Lisa saw the same in him and disliked it just as much.

"Yeah," he allowed, eyeing her shamelessly. Stunning body, all the toned motion and sinewy strength that Vaje liked to see. If she were a coyote, she'd be able to hunt all night, to chase the moon through the night sky. "Though I got the impression you didn't need my protection."

She flung the remnants of the pancake into the sink. "I don't. But I'll indulge Dark's protective instincts. Don't think I trust you an inch though."

He wouldn't be fool enough to make that mistake.

_She's a lot like you –  
The dangerous type  
She's a lot like you  
Come on and hold me tight_


	25. Chapter Twenty Four

Shockingly (for both you and I) this is on time. Long may it continue. My heartfelt thanks to the stars and suns of ye who reviewed last time round - thanks for telling me what you thought! General cherishment and chocolate to:

**Danel, Eleyne, Dianna, Glare, Jenni, Diomede** and the wonderful **Zans Girl. **Thank you all so much!

Comments are always much adored, pored over, acclaimed, framed, revered, cheered and occasionally feared. I would utterly love to hear what you think - criticism is welcomed with open arms and mind. Please send it all my wicked way!

The lyrics come from Matchbox Twenty's _Downfall._ (Album: More Than You Think You Are).

Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Four**

_Here we go again  
Ashamed of being broken in  
We're getting off track  
And I want to get you back again  
I want you to trouble me  
I wanted you to linger  
I want you to agree with me  
I want so much, so bad_

Chatoya was wrapped up warm as she made her way out to the lake. There was an unwavering conviction, rooted like an oak in her, that the dragon would be there.

Fireblade. If she shut her eyes, she heard her mother's voice whispering of how he drank in the agony of others, and fed upon suffering. The great dragon, the one who commanded fire; last and greatest of the Drax.

"Guess who put the mental in elemental?" had been Cougar's dry wisecrack yesterday. Yesterday, which had been so different, so innocent. Now she was dragged deeper into this dangerous whirlpool, this world of murder and mercilessness that Blue inhabited.

She stopped short. His voice had become silent again, and she waited, the breeze brushing past her ears.

Blinking, suddenly she saw herself, her black hair bound and wind-ruffled; and she was reaching for the arm of that still witch-

She turned to catch Blue Malefici's wrist, and found herself staring into the blue eyes that she had been seeing through only moments before. Eyes of wondrous colour, filled with a rainbow of blues that ranged from azure to the navy flecks invading the thin, thin rim of gold about his pupil.

"Very good," he said softly, and when most she needed to know his thoughts, they were silent. Subtle shadows under his eyes, as though sleep had evaded him too. "Whither do you wander, witch of mine? Chasing a dragon perhaps?"

Involuntarily, her hand crushed tight about his wrist, yet he seemed not even to notice. "You shouldn't have given him that spell."

"Why?"

Chatoya let go of him. "He killed her! Do you think she's going to wake up and hurl herself into his arms? If they fight...Goddess, Blue, have you ever seen dragons fight?"

His eyes flickered with strange lights. "No."

She had the impression that something she had said had startled him. A sudden snowfall-softness to his mouth was only momentary before his cool serenity reasserted itself.

"But rest assured, I will take care of Fireblade. You should know by now that I lay my plans with great care. In fact, I lay all things with care."

Pointedly she ignored the double-entendre. "I didn't find that little stunt last night amusing."

"Really?" Goddess, he was infuriating when that small, slow smile curled up his lips. "I found it most enjoyable. Oh..." The sarcasm was raw in the careless brush of his fingers against her cheek."You mean your brief and unsuccessful attempt to discover gills?"

Chatoya took a step forward, and his eyes widened mockingly. "I mean your brief and unsuccessful attempt to murder me. You need me for whatever it is you're planning."

And whatever it was, she would fight him every inch of the way.

A finger touched her lips. "Don't fool yourself," Blue purred. His voice was a little drowsier than usual, yet still filled with the threat that action might replace mere speech. "I don't need you at all."

He didn't even glance back as he sauntered away, chillily serene as the grey sky above. But his words were a stark invasion in her mind, his telepathic voice the slice of starless hell, not mere sound but texture too, sliding on her thoughts as the glassy smoothness of volcanic rock might.

_Watch out for Ysandron._

And though Chatoya sensed he no longer spoke to her, his mental voice quivered distantly like an echo bouncing along a tunnel.

_Two are here. Closer...closer to the Four, and th..._ It faded as subtly as mist in the broiling sun.

She drew her coat closer about her, even though the sun had slid out from behind the slate clouds.

What is it you really want, Blue Malefici? Who are the Four...and how can I make you tell me?

Four. The four advisors for Pursang? She didn't think so.

I need to read your mind. I need your defences down. And the only time you let me inside your mind is when you're playing games with me.

Maybe...

It's a dangerous game, but two can play it.

X - X - X - X - X

"Keeeee-rist!"

There was a thump, and Lisa cautiously put down the book she was reading to rise with the quicksilver motion of a meerkat. That wasn't Vaje's voice, which was all sandpaper snarls; he'd gone to meet one of the other godfathers.

"Nice place!" Young. Male, and closer. Filled with an energy that wasn't somehow right. Lisa couldn't put any word more specific on it, because she could only feel the intruder dimly on her senses, but it was as if someone had played a major song in a minor key. "Anyone here?"

She slid out of the study to peer into the lounge, and there, among the greens and blues of their comfortable den of depravity, spotted someone. A short, slight someone who ambled over to the mantelpiece and fingered a photo, who picked up her A3 sketchbook that she'd left on the coffee table to leaf through it, who glanced at the TV and-

A pressure in her head, as though thread had been drawn tight on her skin.

It flicked on without the boy moving, and as he swivelled his head to look around, Lisa saw his face.

Sweet, really, with those baby-blue eyes that had a calculating gleam as he eyed the silver and bronze chess set, and a cherubic mouth turned up in idle approval. "Ve-ry nice," he murmured softly, then froze, causing Lisa to concentrate on emptiness as his mind flickered out, questing. So. Sensitive.

Cheeky, she thought, anger gently rising in her veins. Walking into our house, running your filthy hands over our things. Running your mind over me.

The boy heaved a breathy sigh, and gave his head a little shake to fling the mud-brown hair back. It was curiously cut, long in some places and short in others so it fell in an artful tumble; if Chatoya had been there, she might have told Lisa that it had the same effect as Jacqui's had - designer mess.

"Sure know how to pick 'em, Sal," he said to himself chirpily, and Lisa's eyes narrowed. Sal? An accomplice. Had someone been watching the house? The large bag he carried would certainly fit enough of their valuables. "Better get started."

A distant snick told her someone had just come in the front door. Vaje, had to be. Good, if he was back he could help her with this.

The boy picked up her mobile phone and her composure popped like a cracker.

Lisa charged, screaming a primordial warcry that curdled the air, and curdled the boy's face in sheer shock. Carpet squashed under her feet as she leapt, coiling her body into a fast, firm spring that would-

Something smashed into her in midair, knocking her away from the boy. The painful impact with the floor crushed the breath from her and she skidded inelegantly forward in a pile of warmth and motion. It was a beautiful imitation of an out-of-control rhinoceros.

For a few seconds, she couldn't move. What on earth was that? A kinetic punch from the vampire? No...someone ungainly scrambled into a human tumble with her.

"What is _wrong_ with you, lady?" an all-too familiar voice snarled. Lisa untangled herself from Vaje, not hesitating to give him a good kick on the way. He was looking decidedly flushed. "Do you molest everyone who walks into your home? God, you jump to conclusions so much you should take up pole-vaulting. He wasn't even in your shower!"

She stared at him, speechless at his audacity. Not, however, for long. "He just walked in!" she shouted. "Who the hell is he?"

The strange boy's fangs were out, and his eyes the azure-tinged silver of a highly vigilant - and unfortunately undamaged - vampire.

"He's a guest! He's going to ruthlessly take advantage of your hospitality - he's going to eat your food, and watch your TV, and spend thirty bloody minutes in the bathroom gelling his hair!" Vaje howled back.

"I've got it down to twenty," the boy offered, his voice holding a hint of a sharp whine. It was soft despite that edge, a little childish. "Are you going to get off her, Sal, so I can practice a touch of torture?" The merry eyes sparkled. "Or is this one for play?"

Something in the words sent a ripple through Lisa. It was the way he spoke; the tranquillity that said the boy meant it as a genuine comment. Hurting her would be entertaining. A pleasurable act of science. Not a job, but a hobby.

Dear god, Darkstar was digging out all the nuts for this assignment.

Salvaje Chusson's face was set and stubborn, and Lisa was suddenly very glad he was here.

"No, she is not for play, Ross," he snapped. "And I told you to knock before you walked in."

Ross ignored him - yes, it had to be the Ross, the Nightworld assassin who had disappeared a year ago, to the delight and chagrin of many - and focused on Lisa. "Sure you don't want to play?" he enquired sweetly. "I know some very fun games."

A low rolling growl curled into the air.

"Scrabble, for one," the vampire said blithely. "So...I'm a godfather. And hey, I'll go to the mattresses with you any time."

"Letch," she said under her breath, at the same moment as Vaje darkly muttered, "Creep."

The vampire flung wide his arms, though his eyes retained that watchful glitter. "So, as Sal obviously isn't feeling up to showing his manners, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ross, and I'll be your godfather for the next few days. I've got it right, haven't I?" he added to the coyote. "We're pretending to be godfathers?"

The withering stare he got was an answer. "Subterfuge was never your strong point," Vaje snapped.

Ross beamed, and Lisa had to admit grudgingly he had an elfin charm; yet he sent fear whirring through her brain. She knew with a bone-deep certainty that however amiable he seemed, it was a pretence.

"Keeping quiet was never yours," the vampire hissed. "I haven't forgotten you, Chusson. I don't forgive and I don't forget."

The coyote wore a mask of contempt; looking between them, they created a strange tableau. The cherub and the demon, locked in combat.

"Isn't it time for your next hit?" Vaje asked with deadly gentleness. "Don't think I don't know what's in that bag, Ross. You and your needles, and your goddamn bags of white powder and weed. You're a mess."

There was strain in the vampire's face. His clean-cut façade dropped like the curtain on a play. "Yeah? So what, Sal. The world's a mess. You try having a conscience forced on you, then try killing."

"Don't do it then." The coyote turned his head away, and curtly helped Lisa to her feet. His hands were cool from the wind outside, but held a certain control, a courtesy that diminished her fear a little. Gone was his wry humour of earlier.

The vampire's eyes bulged, and he seemed about to attack Vaje, but held back. "I have nothing else."

The silence was heavier than mercury as the two glared at each other. Gods, Lisa thought, what have we got ourselves into? I don't want that guy protecting me! Dark had to send us the two guys with a Past. Not a past - a Past.

Toya's going to love this.

X - X - X - X - X

He was there, sat on the bench as maybe she had been that first time when this dragon, dressed in a lie, had sought her out. He wore no human disguise this time; the livid tiger-streaks of his hair were a silhouette of the past against that bland grey sky. How alive had the world been then? Had everything burned like he had?

Chatoya stepped off the crunching gravel path and onto the damp, scraggly grass beside it. Nor was she entirely sure why; why sneak up on the boy who stared out onto the restless mirror of the lake?

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Iager didn't look towards her. His voice had been sorrowed, yet in it, Chatoya had thought she heard the roar of a volcano.

She studied the waters, and remembered how it had glinted in moonlight, and how the rainbow shards of the faeries had darted about it. And Blue's arms, about her in the night, had been deliciously tight, melting away into water, into death. His hands, cupping a myth, tangled in her hair, as the weeds of the lake twisted in her fingers. His lips, moving slow and soft, asking and demanding, were not so different from the feel of the lake leaving icy kisses on her skin.

Beautiful - oh yes. Beautiful, but deadly.

"Sometimes," she answered, and moved to sit beside him. "Is she..."

"The waters wash her tomb." An ache tolled in his voice. "I called a storm here to hide her forever, and it wept when I could not."

"Please," she said, the words springing to her tongue in a rush. "Please, don't do this. Don't use that spell. It's from Blue, and I can promise you, he doesn't mean any good."

There was utter anguish in his eyes, and inhuman power too, but after facing Blue, it scarcely touched her, except to burn a little instead of freeze. "What more evil can it do?"

"I...I don't know." When I look at you, I smell smoke, she wanted to say. I feel it choking my lungs, and stifling my screams. I see a world torn apart in your gaze, and the passing of the years has done nothing to ease you; what makes you think it can ease her? What makes you think she will even return?

But she saw the answer. He didn't know, but believed with a fanatical fervour. He had to. Mere reason was no answer for this. No words of hers would stop him.

"Put out the light, and put out the light," he quoted dreamily. "I have put her out, and I shall light her again, and you will see...I hear her in my dreams, and I hear her in my every waking moment. She is here already, but I will bring her to reality."

"And what will you bring the rest of us?" she asked. "Suppose she wakes mad, or decayed, or not at all? What will you do then, Fireblade?"

"I am not Fireblade!" He was on his feet, agitated and near-violent before it faded into that grey and drawn sorrow. "Never again. Go away, witch girl. You will never understand. Love and lose, and then we will talk of consequences."

If you are alive to. If I am alive to.

She thrust away that morbid thought, and left him to lave the lake with his yearning. And prayed, oh prayed, that the Lady of the Lake was lost already, and would never return.

X - X - X - X - X

Storms start from nothing at all. From the flap of a butterfly's wings, stirring air into turmoil, and sending ripples through a world too tender for such disorder. One touch in the wrong place, and a hurricane is born.

Butterflies, spreading wide their wings in the sun, wings the flaming flaunted gold of the eyes that squinted into the sun.

Strange how in the midst of this swirling stormy rage there was a little pit of absolute silence, black and hollow as the crypt. There he felt the peace of having given yourself up to primal power, and knowing that you were to be carried along upon without any care for consequences.

Maybe there would be consequences later. But there would not be the wounded, angry hurt of before, the bitter sting of that rejection because

(She)

there would be so much else to hide it, to bury it as soil was hurled onto bodies, shovels of dirt piling up. There would only be the hurt of others, their bemusement, their sorrow, their rage. God yes, this was what he had missed, the sheer glory of knowing where to thrust the knife.

(didn't)

The world seemed a brighter sharper place, ice-sharp, knife-sharp, pain-sharp. Every colour in the garden flared bright, throbbing in the chill. And Cougar Redfern waited with patient breath and impatient heart for that first strike. Once the first strike was made, it was easy to make the next and the next and the next. Cruelty cascaded upon cruelty like he had let it all those years ago, before he conceived the lie that he wasn't like that.

(want)

"Hey..." A blond head appeared in front of him, wearing the charming smile. He saw it through new eyes - or was it only old eyes, the true way to see. The person in the eye of the storm took in the warmth, and the vivacious bounce to the walk, and then laid a price on the cheetah's pelt.

What...

For a moment, his head resisted, and then the anger surged and whipped him around in its dervish dance.

What would I pay for him to die?

(me)

"Look," Jepar said, emerald eyes filled with gentle concern. "Can we talk? I've got something on my mind."

Cougar glanced at him almost lazily. "That's a first, then."

His tone was cold enough to make Jepar frown. But otherwise, he passed it off. Stupid, a voice in Cougar's head sang. That'll see you dead.

"It's about Toya." The shifter settled himself on the grass, and wrapped his arms round his knees. "I'm worried about her. I mean, the prom...and her getting jumped by wolves. She's been different lately."

"I don't want to talk about her," he said harshly.

Jepar scrubbed at his temples. "Sorry. I forgot you...her...I mean...bugger."

The smile stretched naturally onto his face, the crocodile's smile, false as the crocodile's tears. "Don't worry about it, Jepar. We all know how dumb you are. Isn't that what Tali's realising?"

Motion frozen, and then Jepar uncoiled himself, unconsciously sliding into a defensive position. "What do you mean?" The British accent stronger, more clipped.

"Well..." Cougar arched one eyebrow. "Seems obvious to me that she's getting bored with you. She's a dragon now. You're...nothing to her."

"It isn't like that-"

"Or did you just settle for second-best? After all, it didn't work out with Toya, did it? But then - that's to be expected. We both know what a cold bitch she can be."

The green eyes, fresh as the grass, spring-innocent, were wide. "Wh-hat? I can't believe you just said that! That's such crap..."

"Is it?" the lamia murmured lightly. "Hey, Jepar, why don't you ask your soulmate where she disappears off to every Wednesday?" He stopped himself short. That was new. He hadn't even known Tali went anywhere on Wednesdays - where had that thought come from?

The cheetah's hackles were up now, and there was a new wariness to him. For a moment, he was the boy Cougar had first met in Ryars Valley four years back, hunted and haunted. "How do you know about that?"

_I don't kn-_and then the rage swept over him, rage that didn't care where the facts came from, and only knew they were there.

"I thought everyone knew," he said carelessly. There. The flicker of pain in Jepar's eyes. "Ask her, Jepar. And hey - don't take it too hard. They're all like that."

"Like what?" Paranoia, panic in his face. "She just goes walking."

Cougar chuckled, and the sound was strangely familiar, that soft, confident laugh. "Sure she does." He got to his feet, satisfied with the hurt on the cheetah's face. Let them hurt. Let them feel the way I felt.

And the treacherous self sprang up, protesting loudly - but that's my friend, that one of my closest friends sitting there, what the hell am I talking about? Unease and wrath warred, but what could fight that storm?

It doesn't hurt so much, he caught himself thinking as he left. It doesn't hurt so much now.

_Come on and lay it down  
I've always been with you  
Here and now  
Give all that's within you  
Be my savior  
And I'll be your downfall_


	26. Chapter Twenty Five

Thank you so much to everyone who commented – you are utter stars! My thanks to:

**Mandy, Dianna, Meg, Sylvia, Ellie, Eleyne, Orange. Katherine, IC Dragons, Diomede, Mal, Ky, AnthyRose** and last but not least, the fabulous **Rain**.

Comments are adored, pored over, acclaimed, framed, cheer, revered and occasionally feared...

The lyrics come from Better Than Ezra's _I Do _ (Album: Closer). Hope you enjoy!

**Chimera Part Twenty Five**

_I got a little bit of reason  
For everything I've done  
I might just serenade the moonlight  
And I get so lonely in this crowd  
I want to scream but make no sound_

Do the dead dream?

He tilted back his head to the moon faint and hazy in the sky, and the motions sent a light wash of dizziness over him. Secret moon, silent moon, silver-shot as her hair and just as distant. He would have reached out and plucked it from the sky for her, would have torn himself to pieces at her word.

Maybe he would have to.

Iager lowered his head to the lake, darkening to pitch in the young evening. She lay safe, still beneath it. And the spell...

Finished at last. It was locked away, hidden from prying eyes and prying hands and Iager waited with fervour for the half-moon when he could cast it at last. The half-moon, an old witches' trick; the time when the sky stood between darkness and light as the soul itself did, when the pull of other worlds was strongest.

God, he could hardly wait the handful of days it would be. So he remained here, close to her, calling her silently but hearing nothing in reply. Her tomb was washed by her element, and her body cocooned by stone. In his minds' eye, he saw her as he had left her, the glittering cascade of hair spread beneath her and her throat necklaced by the livid purple imprints of his hands, though he knew in truth she was long dust.

You will love me, he thought. I will make it right this time.

Do the dead dream? He didn't know, but surely if she had dreamed, Ryar would have dreamed of him, of them. Of those slow and sensuous nights in a burning world, of the touches that had bound them and the words that had tied them.

He refused to think of the differences that had broken them.

All he thought of was her full-throated voice, pouring out across the air, and her indigo eyes, and the way she said his name. All he thought of was the curve of her shoulders, and the taste of her skin, and every memory he had never known would mean so much.

And it hardly seemed to matter if the dead dreamed when his own dreams burned so fiercely, dreams of life, dreams enough to deny the grave and turn back time: dreams to break the world.

X - X - X - X - X

Evening was a strange affair. The air was chillier than the morning, and Chatoya knew that winter was coming. A season of ice, shrouded in hanging sheets of mist, a season of pallid hell and pastel promises. Blue's season.

He was in her head, his voice moving like fog on the wind, shredded words that tantalised and infuriated her completely. A pounding headache had set in, but even her throbbing skull couldn't distract her from the pieces of his soul nipping at her.

And when you were dining with at least one confirmed sociopath, you wanted to be as alert as possible.

Ross. Only one name; no one knew of any other. Ross, with a cherub's cute smile, and round wide eyes. He had a smile to make heaven hush, framed by muddy hair that reminded her of nothing so much as Jacqui's styled mess.

He was enticing as a Botticelli painting, and savage as a neurotic tiger.

"This is good chow, lady," Vaje remarked, stabbing at the last of his rare steak. So rare it oozed. The gory mess had made Chatoya shudder, but she politely put aside her revulsion to concentrate on her salad.

It had been difficult though, with Ross's eyes trained on her. Lisa had hissed something about him being on drugs, and looking at his wild and jagged smile, and the uncontrolled way he was handling his food - as if he were drunk - she didn't doubt it. Drugs for vampires were in a class of their own. Smack, coke, weed - they did nothing. Part of the kick of drugs was how dangerous they were.

Vampires put sawdust in theirs.

It had made Chatoya laugh the first time she heard it - but Cougar hadn't laughed. Only said quite calmly, with his eyes the solemn hazel they always were when he was serious, that it was just as lethal to vampires as to humans that way. That it sent vampires crazy.

"She'd be better," Ross said, his voice a grating whine.

Chatoya looked up, fork midway to her mouth, to find his lips parted and his feral eyes on her, sketching lines above the faint blue tracery of her veins.

"She has a name," she said harshly. After Blue, she couldn't say she feared him in the same way - but something made her wary. The serrated violence was waiting to move from his expression to his actions. "And she's no one's snack."

"Certainly not Malefici's," Vaje murmured, pushing chips around his plate. His bronze hair was curling a little from where Lisa had thrown water over him and hurled him out of 'her' kitchen. Chatoya - who knew exactly what Lisa was like when she was cooking one of her famous dishes - had kept well clear and spent the hours trying to pretend Blue was not invading her mind.

Lisa arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"We had a...run-in," Chatoya said weakly. She hadn't wanted Lisa to know; she didn't need another round of you-know-what-he's-like. She knew. She knew with more than mere mind but with her very being; she knew because his soul twined about her like a cobra, dropping hints of all he was at every instant. "Nothing major."

Vaje snorted, but must have caught her piercing look, because he flicked Lisa's hair so the coloured beads clicked and said, "Lady, she does to Malefici what you do to strangers."

The made vampire batted his hand away. "Turns them on?"

Chatoya nearly choked on a lettuce leaf. Lisa and Vaje definitely had chemistry. She just wasn't sure if it was the kind that saved lives or the kind that cost them.

The pair of them had done nothing but argue and wrestle all evening; after the water-throwing incident, there had been a fight over the TV remote. Vaje had won, by a dislocated shoulder and a snapped wrist. She wasn't sure if it was lust, or the first round of the WWF.

The coyote frowned. "Not quite," he murmured, though the look he gave Chatoya was distinctly odd. Contemplative almost, but with a hint of something else - realisation? - thrown in.

"Malefici didn't kill her?" Ross inquired, voice suddenly sharp and full of new interest. It made her spine go cold; she didn't want Ross's attention, she didn't want him in her house!

And she had no soulmate connection to save her from him.

X - X - X - X - X

The words had been twisting about Jepar's head all day.

_Seems obvious to me that she's getting bored with you. She's a dragon now. You're...nothing to her._

Cougar's words, his closest friend. He remembered the strange look on Cougar's face - that tight, narrow look that Jepar had only seen once before and never wanted to again. It warned of anger boiling under the surface that might explode like liquid fire. The look the lamia had had when Sonj died.

Toya hurt you, didn't she? Jepar thought dully. She didn't mean to, and she would never want to, but she did. Is that why you can see what I've been trying not to? Tali isn't mine anymore.

I don't know whose she is, but not mine.

It was time to work it out. It was time to - to end it, if she wanted to. If everyone else could see it...god, he had thought that maybe it was just his imagination, but he had to stop lying to himself and admit something was wrong.

He let himself into her house - she'd given him a key, and he remembered with a pang how proud he had been of that. It had been more than a key to her house, a key her too. To her life and all that meant. To the laughter, the tears, the anger, the calm.

She was inside, throwing clothes into the washing machine. Alisha was a great pool of power in his mind, all earthy softness filled with aquamarine beauty. Power, tempered by time and experience. Even crouched over the machine, thrusting an array of clothes in with one leg tucked under her, she was graceful to him.

"Jepar?" She slammed shut the door, and threw in some powder, giving him a perfunctory glance. His chest tightened. That was it. Just a glance. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I come and see my girlfriend?" He forced himself to unclench his hands. Shouldn't have sounded that sharp. That cruel.

Tali shrugged, and gave him a kiss on the cheek that made the connection wriggle like a fish. "Of course you can." Her little, tranquil smile. The one that spoke of safe, controlled emotion. "What's up?"

"You're up." There. He'd said, he hadn't let himself think about it. He'd said what had been on his mind for so long.

She recoiled from him a little. "Me?"

"You."

"What do you mean?"

"Where do you go?" Jepar demanded, unable to keep the hurt from his voice and hating it. "Where do you disappear every Wednesday? Why won't you let me go with you?"

Alisha stepped back, and there was something unexpectedly fragile in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a long time. The coolness vanished and there was only vulnerability replacing it. "Jepar..."

"Where?" he said, stepping towards her.

"I..." She licked her lips. "Jep, I can't tell you."

Hot, stabbing pain in his chest. What if she was doing it again, what if she had betrayed him for someone else. Was he not enough, was he wrong, had Cougar been right? Was his darling, amazing dragon bored?

She saw it, of course she did, and a kind of horror appeared. "Surely you don't think..."

Jepar found he could only look back, helpless and aching. I want to know you, he wanted to say. I want things to be perfect, like they were.

The sapphire eyes shut. "Oh my god, you do. You really do."

"Tali," he began, uncertain of what he could say; unable to deny the suspicions, but unwilling to admit he didn't trust her. Wanting so much to tell her everything he felt, and how much, how unbearably much he loved her and yet was never sure she felt the same.

She was a pretty girl, he knew that anyway, but to him...more. Every shimmer of her earth-rich hair, every red glint from it was mesmerising; every word was precious and every touch, every gesture to be savoured. But the touches had been less, and the words stilted until he was no longer sure. Beauty was truly in the eye of the beholder; one person's god was another's god help me. Even her flaws; the crooked line of her mouth, noticeable only to one who knew her face intimately, was endearing.

We haven't changed, have we? he thought. Eight hundred years and so many lives, but we're still those silly, scared kids who played with fire and were so surprised when they got burnt.

"Why aren't you happy?" he burst out. "You're not, are you?"

She breathed in harshly. "I..." Her face crumpled a little. "No. I'm not happy." Then the cold strength, dragon-coldness flowed over it. "I've been unhappy for a while."

Jepar could hardly form the words. It hurt. It hurt to hear that. "Why? It's me, isn't it?"

"No, it's..."

But he was sure her voice lacked conviction. "Where do you go? Why are you trying to get away from me?"

"Fine," she said abruptly, her face a tense mask. "Come on then."

"What-where?"

Her hand closed about his, slender but hard from treading the earth in shape after shape. "Come on," she insisted. The soulmate link tingled in his head, fizzing like sherbet, but there were no words between them there.

Jepar let her drag him out along the road and through the chill sun. They must have looked so ordinary to anyone; teenage couple, hand in hand. He was bemused when she stopped by the Black Dahlia, the abandoned club Circle Strange were gradually making their own. The key was - as ever - in the door, because most of Ryars Valley were too canny to break into anything of the Circle's. Cougar's temper was practically a celebrity in its own right.

She unceremoniously led him inside, and shoved him down onto one of the sagging sofas, whose springs gave way a little more; Jepar winced as metal barbed his thigh. "I was saving it," she said shortly, moving over to one of the cupboards and heaving off the half-rotted wood. "But I guess you can have it a little early."

"Huh?" was all he could managed, utterly baffled. "You come here?"

"It's private." And he couldn't help admiring how gracefully she moved. My dragon. My dragon, who should never have been one. Sorcery made you, and maybe it saved you, but...my dragon can be so cold. "Good for keeping secrets."

His heart iced over at that. "I..."

Something in her hands as she turned back to him, her hair sliding from the grips that held it, catching on her horns. A black, rectangular thing that he realised was a book.

"It was supposed to be a birthday present," she explained. "But you can have it now. It's not finished."

He took it, stunned. And there on the front page...

"Dear Jepar," he read aloud, his voice softening at the words. "Sometimes I don't know how to tell you how much I love you, so I don't say anything. This is to say all the things I can't."

He turned the page, a wonderful joy opening in him. Pictures, sketches - one Lisa had drawn of him that Alisha must surely have begged and pleaded to get hold of. Bus tickets, cinema stubs, photographs, a petal from a flower he had given her, pieces of poetry, little phrases, descriptions of days they had spent together. Only half-full, but the work in it was...was...

"That's...amazing," he murmured slowly, wonderingly, and closed it. A flushing guilt filled him. "God. God, Tali...I'm so-"

She put a finger to his lips, and the electric contact stopped him. A little smile, the one they shared so often for their private jokes, the moments that were theirs alone. He hadn't seen it in a while. A shake of her head.

"I am unhappy, Jepar," she told him, and again he saw that slight crumbling of her smooth mask. "But not because of you. Not ever because of you."

He hugged her and strange balmy relief washed over him. Not me, he thought. Not me. She loves me. Her head nestled into his shoulder, and the relief was chased by bafflement. "But...why?"

Hwer shoulders stiffened. He had an urge just to lie with her in his arms, and never leave this dusty little room. Never to face the weariness and the fret and the agitation of the world outside.

"Why?" A brittle laugh and the eyes she raised to his were a deeper sapphire than usual. "I hate what I am. I hate what David made me. I'm a monster. I'm inhuman."

"Tali," he said, shocked, drawing her close into him until not even air separated them. "You're not a monster! Who have you hurt?"

"Asides from you...no," she planted her hand over his mouth. "I didn't mean that, Jep. I just...I can't explain."

He pulled her fingers away, brushing her knuckles with his lips. "Try."

A moment of silence, but it was silence he could bear.

"I feel so out of control," she began, unusual tentativeness quavering her voice. Alisha had a self-belief like no one he had ever known; perhaps it could make her a little harsh, and quick to judge, but it made her direct too, made her strong against a world that had shown her little mercy. "Dragon power - it's incredible. It's there all the time, pushing at me, wanting me to do...things."

"Things?" He stroked her hair, and never knew how much it moved his soulmate. Each small gesture a symbol of a want for her, a need for her, an intimacy that trussed them.

"Things." Deep breath. "Horrible things. I can't even describe them, Jep. They just flash in my head. It wants me to burn, and to hunt and it always, always wants blood. Blood and pain, they feed it. Sometimes it's so faint I can hardly hear it but other times - especially at night - it's screaming in me. And when I change, it swamps me and I can hardly breathe or feel. Sometimes, I'm even taken somewhere else. Somewhere burning and filled with huge roaring noises." A shudder rippled through her. "I hate it, I hate it! I don't want this. I never did, but I had no choice."

"I know," he whispered, feeling helpless. "I'm sorry."

Yes, he knew how little choice she had had. It seemed to him sometimes that all Alisha's choices had been stolen from her because of one choice made wrongly, one slip that had scored her path for eternity. A dragon eager to become mortal had traded her powers for Alisha's humanity, aided by a man who wanted Alisha for himself. David y Pelathas had killed the dragon, but had not expected Alisha, in her new and glorious powers, to turn upon him.

"I don't want them anymore," she said hopelessly. "I'd give them away, if I could. If I knew how. But David threw that stupid spell away when he'd done it, and everyone who'd want dragon powers...well, let's just say none of them are likely to be stopping at Sanity Central."

He didn't say anything, but his mind was already fixed on the one person he knew who had had dragon powers thrust upon her.

But would she...?

Should she?

X - X - X - X - X

Beautiful evening. Beautiful world; winter skies, smeared with a haze of pastels and fires all wrapped about each other. Pastels and fires, like the cold and heat that burned Cougar Redfern in his anger. He stared up at them as he strode around the streets of town, ignoring every person who glanced his way. The young mother with her baby and her skirt smeared with pureed food, and the gang of giggling kids sitting outside the ice-cream parlour, and the despicably cute couple kissing on the sidewalk that Cougar felt obliged to elbow in the back as he passed.

Damn it. Damn it! His head was splitting from fighting this irrational rage. What had he said to Jepar? He'd always been annoyed by how happy the cheetah was, but in a low-level gently envious way. Not with this burning hate. This wasn't right, this wasn't him.

Gold eyes flashed like lightning. And who was he? Did he even know?

Been so long. So long since I remember not pretending, not lying. Lies on the enclave, lies here, lies in my heart. No escape, only having to be so goddamn good, treating vermin like people and leashing that utterly foul temper. So much time wasted in pretending to be nice, pretending to be normal, yeah, pretending to be vermin.

And what had it got him?

Pain. Sonj dead, and Therill dead, both mouldering now. The hollow loneliness, with Toya oh-so polite and friendly, and his soulmate, the one who supposed to be everything, fled from him because he was too alien even when he was being like her. Pain and loneliness and boredom.

Look at Blue. His little brother, who had never even pretended humanity, carving paths through flesh, his footsteps puddle in blood, hated and feared but yes, respected. Yes, maybe even loved by some, though who could say how many of those saw beyond the glamour or the power to that black and rotten core? Respected. Admired. Doing as he wished and never harmed for it.

If Blue could, why couldn't he?

But the thought was horrific. Repugnant.

He'd seen too much of what Blue could do. And yeah, wasn't it easy to hurt? Didn't it make something inside you bend and flex when you poked at the festering wounds in someone's soul? Wasn't the power terrible and intoxicating?

I swore I would never be him, Cougar thought stubbornly. If he closed his eyes, Carinna's sliced throat, ribbons of scarlet and white and pink, filled his vision. I would never do that.

But the anger felt so right. Wasn't it all he had? Wasn't it-

A strange feeling. One he had experienced before; the sense of eyes boring into him, launching a prickle up his spine. But this was not physical, but psychic. He would scarcely have noticed if he hadn't known it, because he had felt in once before, he had drenched his mind in it.

Yes. There had been the taste first; the coppery sweetness, pouring into his mouth, thick on the tongue and slick in the throat. And the aroma of human skin, smelling like the kettle-ash they used to wash the slaves' clothes and sweat and underneath, the hot, darling scent that was all her own.

"Cougar," Sandrine said, as she stepped out of the shadow of the building. She must have seen him coming. "How are you?"

And then she did something he didn't expect.

Power thrust at him like a treacherous knife, power that was not the incredible wave of Blue, or the jungle swarm of Chatoya but a thin, honed force of pure emotion that threatened to pierce his mind.

Dear god, she had made her emotions a psychic weapon.

His shields saved him - barely - and he couldn't stop the gasp that revealed more than he wanted her to know. Hell, he'd never known a human use themselves like that. Making their very soul a blade. But he just...hadn't expected it. He knew how to defend himself now.

"Oh, did I startle you?" she asked derisively, and her avid gaze was a warning in itself.

Something so dramatic about the little flourish of her hands as she executed a mock curtsey. He scowled at her. "Shouldn't your line be, 'I've been waiting for you, Obi Wan?'"

"Drop the Obi and add a few letters, and we'd be closer," she murmured.

How could someone who looked so normal have that power? Cougar knew the riptides of strong emotion, but he'd never felt anything so powerful, so corrupt. It had been rotten, like years and years of anguish, hatred, hunger decayed into a fetid, overpowering poison.

"How are you?" she said.

A nonchalant shrug. It would do for an answer. "As well as can be expected. Tell me something, Sandrine...why are you so convinced the dragon is your assassin?"

The unexpected question made her blink. That was all. This was a far cry from the girl who cried the first time he fed from her, and laughed the last. "Oh. He isn't. I lied."

"You what?" he said before he could control his response. "What do you mean?"

Sandrine chuckled but it was a dry rasping sound. "Cougar...you're still so naïve." A faint dreamy smile. "God, you were easy."

"Excuse me?" he said, fascinated. Empty eyes, and that pensive smile. It was like the two halves of her face had been mixed and matched.

She stepped closer, and there was a disturbing slinkiness to it. "You've always been so easy to fool. So trusting - I used to find it sweet, and it made me feel better on that goddamned enclave, that pit, that hellhole, that prison. But it's just pathetic. A little push here, a nudge there...you're nothing more than a puppet. Always so angry, Cougar. My angry angel. How'd you like to see heaven?"

"Unless you're talking about Halle Berry stripping," he drawled, mentally sweeping the area for any ambush, "never would be good."

"You've forgotten how to trust your friends," she admonished. "Walking on your own so late. None of them even know you're gone. And do they even care?"

"I can look after myself."

Sandrine's face was brighter than he had seen it. Livid with animation, like someone was moving the muscles without understanding the emotions.

"Oh, that's your big deception, isn't it?" she said, and tilted her neck so he could see the shimmer of her scars, the place where his teeth had sank in over and over. "I saw it so often when you fed. You used to bewitch me, those first few times but then I saw past it to you. And that's the big joke!"

He didn't understand what she was talking about at all, but his fangs were out, his body tight as a wire, and Cougar could feel the power nudging gently at him, waiting for release.

Her analytical stare made him feel entirely worthless and somehow unclean. "You think you can take care of yourself," she told him almost gently, her voice holding the first hum of emotion. "But the truth is that you need caring for so desperately that you can't handle being alone."

Emotions knifed into his ribs. Anger, injustice, fear. "That's not true!"

"You ring yourself with people. You argue just so you know they'll stay, and you give in if it ever looks like they'll leave, truly leave. You're weak, Cougar, but you think you're strong."

He hadn't noticed how close she had gotten, this she-viper. A snarl escaped him, and as she stepped forward, he raised his fist.

A flash of Chatoya, doing the same to him. Those mossy eyes, a jungle fever of emotions.

No. Sandrine was not Chatoya. Whatever she was now, it was wrong. Maybe even monstrous. She had lied to him, and her eyes were dead.

"I am not weak."

"You need people."

Stood in surburbia, under a streetlight that was just beginning to warm up, the sienna lights gave her face an eerie cast. It was surreal, facing down his past and hearing words that sounded as though they came verbatim from his little brother.

"So?" he shot back, letting his voice grow harsh. "That doesn't make me weak,. It makes me hu-"

"Human?" Her voice cut sharp. But she was less human than he. How could that be? "Sad, Cougar. So sad. You're one of them now, whatever you think. You've thrown away your heritage. You could have been so much, but you are nothing, while I...I have fought to be what I am."

"In dire need of medication?" Cougar suggested sweetly.

A flick of her eyebrows. "Feared."

It was his turn to appraise her, from the faded sandy hair to the ballet dancer's long legs. "Sorry, Sandrine, but I'll save my pathetic screaming for bigger perils. Like Blue."

"Oh...Blue." Her hair was lank in the artificial light, but there was nothing dull to her voice. There was a rasp to it, near sensual, near agonised. "Blue. Oh yes. I remember what he did. I remember what I saw. And take it from me, Cougar Redfern, he will get exactly what he deserves."

"From you?" The thought of this ragged little wreck of a human being taking on Blue was laughable. Insane. "As if."

The parchment smile. "I'm more than you think."

"Oh, please," Cougar said witheringly. "Take it from me, not even a white cat and a piranha pool is going to make you into a world-class villain. A straitjacket might make you into a normal citizen though, so stop trying the creepy act and go away. And if you follow me again, I'll drain you dry and leave your corpse for the wolves."

He gave her a sweet, fanged smile and turned to go. Yeah. He was heading straight home to find Toya. To warn her that Blue was up to something and Sandrine was in on it. Had to be.

"A little advice, Cougar." He refused to face her. She was vermin, however nuts. He didn't fear vermin.

"What?" he said shortly.

He never even knew what happened next. All he knew was that something smashed through his shields like a black arrow of horror; his world was beyond colour, beyond sound, beyond sense and into pure feeling that knocked him to the floor. His world was red anger and sizzling hatred and worse of all, moaning sorrow that tore at all he was.

Emotion as a weapon.

He'd thought it quirky. But it wasn't. It was fatal.

He was reeling, his world filling back in slowly, speckling into focus. And he ached. He ached, and he burned and he writhed. How could she live with this? How? She'd flushed her emotions into him, used that old bloodlink with such ruthlessness, leaving him pinned by something he couldn't fight any more than he had ever been able to.

Her mouth spilt into a bigger smile, and Cougar had the unnerving hallucination that this wasn't Sandrine at all but some cleverly made puppet as Sandrine stood over him. "Nothing," she said.

And that was what he was hurled into.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya locked her door for the first time in years. Strange, she had always felt safe in her own home; but now, Ross's frosted eyes stung her. Something was not quite right with him, and worse, maybe something she recognised, though she wasn't sure what.

Vaje and Lisa had stayed downstairs, playing a half-serious game of chess and arguing over just about anything possible. If Lisa said something was black, Vaje would find it white. But the war of words was a veneer over two people struggling with a very obvious attraction.

She sighed. It was so good to finally sink down onto her bed at the end of what had been a too-long day. Her head felt woolly, heavy from too little sleep and too many problems. And always in the background was the wicked dance of Blue's mind, moving to its own alien rhyme and rhythm.

Hour followed hour, draining by slowly while she tried to ignore his insistent thoughts. Indigo permeated the sky, revealing scatted stars that gleamed like broken glass in the gap between her curtains.

Still she couldn't sleep. She was too hot, too cold, too uncomfortable...

And he wouldn't shut up. Didn't he sleep?

She sat up with a half-groan, half-snarl, hands tugging at her hair in the faint and futile hope that would get rid of him. She kicked at the duvet, tangled about her and wondered if she could just bewitch him.

But he was half a spell himself, with the thrall of those blue beyond blue eyes, stretching out beyond even the reach of the sky, immeasurable and amazing; eyes like the heart of winter hopes, and a spirit like the despair of angels.

Another hour, filled with useless thoughts. Thoughts of drowning, and of clammy water in her mouth, dank and dirty. Memories of power pulsing through her, and of reaching out blindly in those last moments of consciousness, grabbing at anything and reaching...

Him.

Blue. Yes, she had glimpsed his mind for one moment, like a shaft of light striking into a pit to find the darkness held crystal walls that flung back startling radiance. There had been things she hadn't expected - emotions she hadn't known he could possess and frightening memories she had shied from, sensing only their jagged and deformed shape.

Wait. He had gone silent. Either he was asleep, finally or...

"What do you want?" she asked, half-sitting up to peer at the other side of the room. He was hard to feel in her mind now, but his silhouette eclipsed the stars, those sharp features soft and shadowed in the deceptive night. "To find out if I've grown gills?"

"You've grown a sharp tongue of late," Blue answered lightly. He glided over to her, and flicked the lamp on without so much as a by-your-leave. She squinted in the brightness, until his face slipped into focus. "And as it happens...no. My purpose is perfectly innocent."

Chatoya doubted Blue had ever been perfectly innocent, but refrained from saying so with what she thought was considerable tact. Besides, he could probably hear the thought anyway.

"What I want," he continued, his voice low and harmonious, empty of its usual mesmerising power, "is some sleep."

"Have you tried hot milk?" she proffered flippantly.

Contempt curled in his tones like wet paper in the sun. "You are trying my patience. As ever."

"Things have changed now," she said quietly, and saw something curious flicker in his eyes, like a diary page caught on the wind and fluttering past her before she could read its secrets. "You need me. I don't think you've ever needed anyone."

His eyes narrowed a little, but only in a sort of marvel, as if she had become someone else. "Perceptive of you, sweet Chatoya Irkil, but somehow - really rather blind. Everyone needs people."

"Even you?"

A faint, strange smile quirked his mouth. "Even me. I hate to break it to you, but even us cold-blooded killers have to have something to hold on to. Even I fear, and anger, and...well, let's not lie, I don't love, but certainly I desire."

She searched the striking face, the sinful curve of a mouth that was too lavish for such slanting bones and slanting morals. His winter-pale skin had its own luminosity, but his slumped eyelashes revealed nothing of his eyes, nothing of ice or oblivion.

"You don't show it," she murmured, aiming the easy feint at him.

His voice held a snap; he pounced on the words as if he had been waiting to hear them. "Could you bear it if I did?"

Emotion. How often had she seen what Blue truly was? She didn't know; there were so many sides to him that she could no longer tell which were the only flashing facets and which were the truth.

She answered honestly; she would not allow herself to take on a guise. She was in his world now, and somehow, it seemed that to even forsake one piece of her own safe and tender world would be to mutate from mortal to monster. "I don't know. And I don't suppose I ever will. You're too good at games, Blue. You only know how to win."

"And what's wrong with that?" her soulmate challenged. A finger lifted her chin with surprising gentleness, easing down the line of her throat. His thoughts were hidden from her then, and she wondered if that was why he had done it. "What else is there in this world?"

More, she wanted to say. What about friends, and lovers, and family? "Maybe nothing - for you."

"You'll learn." His face held something close to regret. "You're naïve to think otherwise. Winning is all that matters. And you must play the game to win, Chatoya Irkil - and if you want to play the game, you're going to have to learn to care less. Or at least let the world think you do."

"Why so much advice? You were drowning me yesterday."

Blue shrugged. "That was before I realised you were immortal as far as I'm concerned. If you die, witch of mine, it's going to be most inconvenient. This link has bound us beyond belief. And even us evil archvillains need our sleep."

"What are you proposing?" she said, watching the gold thrusting at the edges of his iris like the tide. Yes, faint shadows on his face, and a little slowness in his voice. Even Blue, it seemed, had his weaknesses.

"To stay here, of course," he said quite casually.

Chatoya nearly choked. "Here? In my house?"

He was obviously finding it amusing. "In your bed, witch of mine."

"Forget it."

"Think about it. The only time I have any peace at all of late is when I'm touching you. Short of cutting off a limb to carry round - which is an option, but rather messy and not entirely easy to explain - neither of us are going to get any sleep. And while it won't kill me, it may eventually kill you."

She knew you could die of lack of sleep, though it took more than a couple of days. Still, Chatoya knew she would need all her wits about her tomorrow. "I don't trust you."

"I'm not asking for your trust."

"Well, you're not sleeping in my bed without it."

He smiled, a dazzling curve of his mouth that was quite enough to knock her breath away a little. "Touche. Well, witch of mine, you can go another day without sleep if you will. You can face the four most dangerous men you're likely to meet in Pursang, and I can assure you they'll tear you to shreds."

He wasn't touching her now, and the truth tolled in his words like a funeral bell. Oh, these men might not be Blue, but just thinking of Ross's face made her shiver.

"We have to lay some ground rules," she said flatly.

Blue rolled his eyes. "If ground rules it must be..."

"No licking, no kissing, no grabbing, no hurting and most emphatically, no biting."

"So...skip the foreplay then?" he drawled. "Oh, do stop looking so prim and proper, witch of mine. If I wanted to hurl you on the bed and ravish you, I would have done so by now. I have better taste."

She felt a childish urge to remind him of the ball, and of just what he had been doing before he decided to drown her, but kept silent. No telling just what his reaction might be. When you are in a cage with a hungry tiger, don't open your cuts.

"Fine," she said shortly. "You can stay. But you behave."

The heavy eyelids dropped, shielding that gold-washed azure. "But of course."

_Could it be so damn naive  
To hope you could agree?  
That someone out there's  
Listening to the same song  
Feeling the same way that I do_


	27. Chapter Twenty Six

Look! Look! Timeliness! This is real, it's not a hallucination :o) Wow, I feel so punctual. Thank you to all the wonderful suns and stars of you who reviewed last time round, despite the author's dreadful inability to keep anything approaching a normal timetable or a normal life. My heartfelt thanks to:

**Ellie, Mandy, Eleyne, Orange, AnthyRose, Tjones, MegQ, Laura, Heavengirl221, Dianna, BabyLoca, **and last but not least, the stunning **S.A. **Thank you so much!

The lyrics come from the Foo Fighter's _Learn To Fly_ (Album: There Is Nothing Left To Lose) which is a stunner of a song. I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Six**

_Run and tell all of the angels  
This could take all night  
Think I need a devil to help me get things right_

The bitter air woke Chatoya; winter was coming, though she wished it didn't have to. As her mind slid from a pleasant dream to uncertain reality, she found a mind knotted about her like a lazy cat, and a body intertwined with her like a sleeping boy.

This was no coincidence.

Shock stung her like the impact of fingers on her face, and then she remembered how tired she had been, how drained and surely - how incredibly irrational. And Blue had taken advantage of that.

Something wriggled inwardly, a little ashamed. No, she thought. That isn't fair. I was tired, not drugged, blind or stupid. I...wanted him here.

And nothing inside her denied it.

She had wanted him here? Yes...perhaps. He had often tried to creatively kill her over the time she had known him, but with Blue, it was almost a reflex. Like a child hitting a toy to see if it would break.

But look beyond that and there were things she hadn't really known existed. It was deceptively easy to think of him as - oh, what had he said? Some empty rotting thing. But...

She remembered the curious tightness of his face in that classroom, when Cougar had stood up and defended his little brother. For once, Blue hadn't been able to defend himself - and his features merged into that pathetic child of years ago, nailed to a wall for the same reason, rescued by the same person, streaked with blood but somehow, still strong. It would have broken her, she had no doubt.

She remembered the heavy, wanton wash of his eyes in her dream, and how utterly dazzling he had been clad in a knight's armour, and the feel of his mouth when he kissed her.

She remembered the car that he had run straight into a tree to drag wolves from her, and how - despite it all, despite his threats - he had taken her into his home, and into his arms to keep the nightmares and the realities at bay. And she remembered his voice:

_The boy that became the monster remembers being hunted, and he remembers how the wolves' teeth hurt, and he remembers how much he wished for someone to comfort him. He learned otherwise in the end, but the monster still remembers him._

She remembered all those things, and realised that perhaps she had never known Blue at all. And perhaps...perhaps she even liked him a little. That worried Chatoya most of all, and as her mind slipped into true awakening, she became aware of just how close he was.

It was strange, she thought, how remote Blue was when awake; someone who used touch as a weapon, as a tool, as communication; as anything but a solace Yet in sleep, he simply wrapped himself about her in a way that was beyond tactile, and beyond friendly, and into something that could almost have been need.

He was a warm weight along her front, legs tangled up with hers and her head tucked under his chin. The gentle tug on her hair was his hand cupping her head, his arm beneath her neck; the other rested in the small of her back, holding her close so they were pressed heartbeat to heartbeat. His shoulders under her touch were relaxed, as if all the latent power coiled in him when awake drained away during slumber.

A subtle, zesty scent clung to him, and his pulse was a slow, comforting drumbeat. Chatoya nuzzled into the hollow of his throat, moving closer to block out the cold in the air.

She didn't see his eyelashes flutter a little, and half-lift, and she didn't see the way the flushing blue eyes dropped to see her crow's wing hair soft and tamed by sleep. Nor did she see the faint smile cross his mouth.

But she did feel the way his mind about hers sharpened, and slid from a formless wash of blue glitter into gemstone-sharpness and icy cool.

"Morning," she muttered, not bothering to move.

"So it is," was the amused reply. The hand that had been resting in the small of her back closed into a fist as he drew his knuckles over her spine. "You're really rather inviting, witch of mine. It's unfortunate that I come here to get sleep."

He unravelled his body from her in one fluid movement; when he leaned over her, the look on that ravishing face was feral and inhuman and fascinating. One hand flattened just below her throat, no pressure at all, but perhaps the warning that there might be.

"I'd much rather have insomnia with you."

"And you're hungry," she said softly, sensing the emotion running through him like a current. It was there in the brilliance of his eyes, in the wide band of gold around his pupil, eclipsing the slender blue. It was there, in the flickering darts of his mind, as though fires burned deep in that crystal consciousness.

"Mmm...yes." Slight, warning thrum in his voice.

"I'm not a quick snack."

The mocking, alluring smile revealed fangs as it curled slowly up. "I never hurry my pleasures."

She sat up, brushing off his hands, and unnervingly aware that her world had altered with that small revelation - she liked Blue. She could live with being attracted to him. It was impossible not to be. She'd be a fool not to fear him and not to respect him for his blatant disregard of all social proprieties.

But to like him? Far more dangerous.

Chatoya mustered her features into a glare, aiming it at where he was propped on one elbow, watching her with an expression of perfect innocence. "Is it even possible for you to talk without sounding like an insider's guide to the Kama Sutra?"

He chuckled, but Chatoya caught the note of surprise in his voice. "No one's ever complained."

I'll bet, she thought. But I'm not everyone else you've ever dealt with. "Did anyone get the opportunity?"

"Ah, ah, sweet Chatoya Irkil, that's personal." He collapsed onto his back, and the smile seemed to have hardened. It was a cold warning that she was walking into a shadowed place, and she might not like what she found. "And not, I think, any concern of yours."

So there was something he didn't want her to find out. Something he didn't want her to know. Chatoya watched him thoughtfully, and then saw a line of attack that would work very neatly.

She let her voice soften a little, let some of the early morning huskiness creep in. "You've made it my business, Blue."

And then Chatoya did something she wouldn't have dreamed of doing before now, and placed her palms either side on either side of his shoulders, leaning over until intimacy was a kiss away. Their lips brushed with their words, and his sharp inhalation was like a victory cry to her.

"You made it my business when you walked in here. You made it my business when you stayed, and you made it your business when you intruded on my life."

"Oh no, my witch." There was nothing gentle in his touch, reaching to hold her still so she could only stare at the eyes that drew in the darkness and spun it into something arcane. "No. It's all or nothing with me. You want to know my past, then you take my present and my future with it."

So this was it. One of those odd suspended moments, time frozen and this choice before her. All. Nothing. Choose now, and if your choice is wrong, pray to every god you know because nothing else will save you.

"And you think I don't want that," she said. Goddess, such a beautiful face, and so tranquil in the clear light. He belonged among the towering skies, belonged among the whites and blues and blacks of arctic hell; embrace the winter, and the cold would surely freeze your heart.

He arched an eyebrow. "I know you don't."

"You don't know me at all," she said frostily. "It's all very well for you to keep proclaiming how little I know you - but how much do you know me, Blue?"

A flicker in his jaw, as though she'd surprised him. "You balked at Pursang, witch of mine. I assure you, I'm far more dangerous."

"Not to me."

He pushed her back, and sat up swiftly, staring at her with what seemed near bemusement. "Are you so sure?"

Not at all, she wanted to say. But I want to play you at your own game. And that means I can't be afraid of you anymore. He was too near for her to sense his thoughts, not near enough for the link to be any use stealing into that alien mind.

"Yes."

Blue blinked, and his eyes exploded into a sparkling pearly colour that made her catch her breath. For a split second, his features showed something Chatoya wouldn't have thought possible - amazement, sheer amazement - before the control slammed him back into impassivity.

"I don't think you understand," he said simply, a little huskiness to his voice. A sardonic, fanged smile. "What I was proposing was a relationship, Chatoya Irkil. A relationship with the monster."

And I was supposed to run off scared. That was it, wasn't it? she realised, I was supposed to flee, terrified at the thought of sharing anything else with you. You can't believe anyone would want to know you.

"I accepted," she said.

A pause. And then he laughed, the hypnotic, darkling sound that held very little genuine amusement at all, and chilled her in a way she couldn't quite explain. It was so...harsh, if she remembered how she had made him laugh in her dream those long days ago.

"You think you want a relationship with me?" he said at last, so contemptuous that she flushed. "This isn't like Pursang, Chatoya Irkil. You can't keep me a secret, you can't call me by some other name and pretend I'm here to keep your safe little world intact." She could see that he was _angry_, of all things, showing it only in his eyes and the hand that snapped round her waist, holding her there. "But I don't think you're going to meet me in broad daylight, or tell me all about your day, or hold my hand in public. I'm the killer. The murderer. The monster. I'm the one they hate and loathe and detest. And you're going to _date_ me?"

He spat out the last.

You still don't believe me, do you? thought Chatoya. You truly don't. "Yes. I..."

Time to explain. She didn't know if he would believe any reason she gave him, so perhaps...perhaps the truth would be best. And as she heard footsteps outside - Lisa up, about to knock on her door (thank the goddess she had locked it.) and ask if she wanted kamikaze pancakes - Chatoya made up her mind.

"I want to know about you," she told him, not leaning back from him or cringing away. A month ago, she would have. A month ago, she had been another person. "I want to understand you. I want to know what the hell you're up to. And..." Chatoya paused, and fiddled with her hair and finally said the lie that was half-true, as the best lies were. "I want you."

For once, he had no sarcastic retort, only his other hand sliding to her waist so he could look at her. Their eyes met, and as so often before, she was looking into the killer of her family and her friends, and not understanding how a world that had once been so simple, where evil was only evil, good only good, and black never slid into grey, had become so complex.

Lisa's knock made her jump, and Chatoya, knowing her friend would try the handle in a second, glanced at it anxiously.

Then his mouth tipped up into a wicked, cruel smile and he drawled, "Prove it."

There was a click as he mentally threw the bolt. The handle turned and she just had time to think - Goddess! before...

The door opened.

X - X - X - X - X

Vaje Chusson was out on his morning run, enjoying the feel of the ground skimming under his feet. He'd been loping for a good two hours now, and was nearly round this beautiful vista.

He'd been stuck in cities too long. All those huge metal and glass cages the vermin built for themselves, cages called cars and cages called houses and cages called offices. Cages, whatever the name.

There was a dispute nearby. His ears picked it up first, and then his nose; the sour reek of someone who hadn't seen a shower in a while, mingling with expensive perfume and pungent herbs.

Vaje slunk forwards on his belly until he could see the people. It was the road into the valley, flanked on either side by the sharp rise of the mountains. A car was sideways across the road, one side scorched by, he'd guess, the same acid-red fire that flared around a pencil-thin man - the herbal one.

"What the hell d'you think you're playing at?" a voice Vaje knew well was demanding loudly. The laidback Australian accent was distinctly strained. "I've travelled for two bloody days straight to get here, and the last thing I need is some daft prat trying to fry my car."

"Rules are rules," the pencil-thin man snapped tightly, as Vaje slid forwards more so he could see all of the trio. "You have not paid. You may not pass."

"Do I look like a billy goat gruff?" the owner of the voice, one Lancelot Stormshot, drawled.

A network of thin purple scars glowed on his right arm; Lance had muttered vaguely about getting stung by a bluey, whatever that was. A shock of sun-streaked blonde hair needed cutting, his jaw was covered in stubble and the sea-green eyes were narrowed in pure loathing. Gone was the flashing grin. Nope, he'd guess Lance hadn't seen a shower in the hectic journey over.

"We are not here to discuss fairy stories," the woman announced. She was far older, but with a wiry strength that made Vaje think he wouldn't want to wrestle her for the remote. "No money, no passage."

"My boss has your bloody money!" Lance shouted, giving his damaged car a hefty kick. "And the rental company are going to chuck a mental when I give them back this hunk of junk in place of their Merc!"

"We have no proof your 'boss' will pay," the woman said icily. She was the same one who had given him so much hassle, Vaje thought, and decided to go and help his old friend.

He wasn't sure who was more shocked when he stepped out into the road; Lance, or the Elders.

"Morning," he said, and wondering why the woman had such a look of aghast horror on her face.

"Vaje," Lance said with a grin, "you do know you're stark bollock naked, right?"

He looked down, and shrugged. "I didn't think I'd be stopping."

The woman had recovered, her face pinching into disgust. "Put some clothes on immediately! There are humans living here!"

"You going to charge 'em to see me?" he enquired, and flicked up an eyebrow. "Tell you what, lady, you let my friend through, and I'll go away. We'll make sure you get your money."

The man swallowed convulsively and said, "Your friend?"

"Lance Stormshot," the vampire said with a big beam. "If you send the bill to Blue Malefici, I'm sure he'll be happy to deal with it."

"M-Malefici...?" His voice slightly more strangled. "Yes," the man said, obviously wanting to get the pair of them out of his hair now they had started being difficult. "Of course. Well...be on your way then."

Lance gave Vaje his lazy, sundrenched smile. "Want a lift, mate?"

"You're playing the Aussie card for all it's worth, aren't you?" Vaje muttered as he got in the car. "You don't change, Lance."

"Neither do you, Vaje. Still flashing people?"

"It tends to get a reaction."

"Too true. Not necessarily the reaction you want, though. Last time I tried it, the pretty girl screamed and ran off, and some hulking great bloke asked me if I wanted to go back to his for coffee. Mike, my little brother, was gutted - he'd been chasing that guy for ages."

Vaje laughed out loud, glad to see a friendly face again. "Still got the devil's own luck, eh?"

"You bet. Where am I going, anyway?" The vampire was clearly still getting used to the car - he was usually found on a motorbike, and had taken it up professionally for a while, before Pursang had icily pointed out it was a touch too high-profile. "What's our witch lady like? One of those black-as-night hags?"

"Not...precisely," Vaje said carefully. "But I wouldn't underestimate her, Lance. She's got Mal in a bind. Tied their lives together somehow - she dies, he dies. And it works. I've seen it in action."

Lance whistled. "That's one feisty girl. Didn't think anything could rattle Mal."

"Yeah? This one shakes, rattles and rolls him." He caught the shocked looks of one or two walkers. It was unusual weather to be half-naked in, and one lady was unfortunate to look in the window, and hastily scuttled away scarlet. "Can you drive any faster? What little reputation I have is deteriorating."

"Your reputation? What about mine? I'm the one who looks as if he picked you up." He was into the narrow suburbs now. "By the way, our fourth - Rina - said she can't come. Some trouble in the capital. Pretty big time. And she muttered about Jacqui turning up crying on her doorstep too. Weird."

He nodded; Washington had been too quiet of late for it to last.

"Here," Vaje muttered, and the car screeched to a halt. "We'll be in time for breakfast with any luck."

Lance yawned widely. "Great. Then I can have a kip. My body clock's going cuckoo. How's Ross? Still nuts? I dropped in on the UK couple of months back and found him doped up to the eyeballs. He'd got hold of some pure stuff; smack with diamond dust, not that sawdust tripe he usually buys. He was off with the fairies and the singing giraffes for my whole visit."

"Still sticking anything you can inhale up his nostrils," he confirmed, hastily flinging opening the passenger seat and dashing into the house. "I swear, he'd mainline flour if it had sawdust in. Worse than-"

He fell silent as he heard raised voices upstairs.

X - X - X - X - X

Lisa flung wide the door, her we're-alive-and-isn't-it-great smile glowing. Then she saw Blue.

Chatoya caught a glimpse of an expression that could only be described as gobsmacked before Lisa slammed shut the door.

It opened again a few seconds later and she stared in again. Blue was still there. Chatoya was still there. His hands were still around her waist. They were still on her bed.

The door slammed again. Opened. Slammed. Opened. Slammed.

The next time it opened, Blue commented with razor-sharp malice, "There are better ways to ventilate the room."

Lisa gawked, and for once, appeared speechless. Even more tellingly, she didn't attack Blue. Her chestnut eyes swept over the room, over Blue's discarded shoes, the window left ajar, the two indentations on the pillows, and the ultimate piece of evidence - Blue himself.

He was fully clothed, but with Blue, that didn't make any difference. Chatoya was sure he could exude sensuous allure in a tutu and a pair of fairy wings.

"Eek," said Lisa tellingly. Her eyes begged Chatoya to tell her this was a joke. A deep breath. And another. Then she managed in a great tumbling flurry, "Whatthehellishedoinghere?"

For an instant, Chatoya met Blue's gaze and saw the mocking certainty there. The one that challenged: go on. Lie. Choose safety.

She swallowed and said firmly, "He slept here."

"Well, I didn't think he was here to look for dry rot," Lisa snapped. "Why?"

Chatoya could feel Blue watching her, that steady, cool regard. Waiting for the falsehood, waiting for the denunciation, waiting for the story of his life to be written out again.

"I wanted him here," she answered, and lifted her head. "And he heard."

The vampire pinched herself. "You what? Are you...and him..." There were expansive hand gestures rather more reminiscent of a mime on speed than togetherness.

Chatoya glanced at Blue. "Yes," she said calmly, and saw him blink. "Yes, I guess we are."

"Wh-hat?" She gestured to him. "You know what he did! Toya, he's taking you for a ride-"

Blue cut in smoothly, not a flicker on his face. "How do you know I'm not the one being ridden?"

Devil, Chatoya thought, fuming. You're going to make this as difficult as possible, aren't you?

A subtle sneer on Lisa's mouth. "I'll just bet."

"No!" Chatoya protested, scrambling off the bed. At least she was decently covered; the chill last night had encouraged her to throw on a pair of jogging bottoms and a tight white T-shirt. "He slept here. Slept. Nothing else. Fine, he and I are having a relationship." A relationship, yes, that she hoped to exploit. A sham. A fraud. Whatever, But still a relationship. "But I am not..." She scrabbled for a phrase that was vaguely civil.

"Making the mad passionate love?" Blue suggested.

So much for that.

"Look," Chatoya pleaded with her friend. "No one's saying that you have to like this. But you're going to have to accept it. He's my soulmate."

"He's a monster."

"And you're so different?" Blue enquired. She didn't even know he had stood until his arms slid round her waist in what was clearly a possessive gesture. If she tilted her head sideways, she knew her cheek would rest against his. "Lisa Ochai. Lovely name, but hardly your own. I know what you were, and I know what you still are."

The made vampire hissed, her face suddenly feral and her eyes a gleaming bronze. Chatoya resisted the urge to curl back into Blue, baffled by the exchange. Part of her always feared this other side to her friends, this dangerous, darkling side. But he was no safer.

"Don't blackmail me," retorted Lisa viciously. "You don't know anything. You only know how to kill, and if you dare hurt Toya, you'll have me to deal with. I don't care if you're her soulmate."

_If you have to_, Lisa's voice fell into her head, _Then I can't stop you. But don't trust him. Don't._

_I won't,_ she promised, and meant it. She didn't know if Blue had heard or not

"Keep your temper to yourself," he advised with the hint of ice unsheathed. "And get out."

Lisa's eyebrows shot up, as she seemed to fumble for words. Finally, she spluttered out, "Well, I'm not cooking him breakfast." She slammed the door for the final time.

There was a brief silence before they heard her scream. "Oh – my - _god_!"

Chatoya let out her breath in a sigh. "One down."

Next thing she knew, she had been spun to face Blue. His hair was sleep-mussed, thorny but still that shocking cobalt. "So you were serious. How interesting."

"Isn't it just?" she said carelessly, making her face as blank as she could. Goddess, what had she just gotten herself into?

"Don't think to play games with me," he warned. "This is a practical relationship, witch of mine. Even think of using me, and-"

"You'll destroy me?" she interrupted sarcastically, knowing it probably wasn't a wise idea. "I've heard it before, Blue. You haven't managed it."

His eyelids dropped, and there was no smile at all on his face. "What makes you think I'm done?"

X - X - X - X - X

"Tam?"

The voice was hesitant, and near-inaudible, but it still made Tamara Slone start. She threw down the magazine she had been restlessly skimming through, and rose to see her soulmate leaning on the doorframe.

It was the first thing he had said since she brought him back.

He was still wan and pale. His eyes seemed to have lost their lustre, rimmed with shadows, but he was looking at her, not through her.

"Hey you," she said, swallowing down the lump of powerful joy in case it cracked her into pieces. "How are you?"

He wandered over, looking incredibly young and touching in a pair of shredded black jeans and a faded grey T-shirt. His hair was wet and shining from the shower that Jodie Slone had thrown him into this morning with an exhortation of "You may be depressed but you can at least be clean", despite all Tam's protests.

"Fine," he said and both knew it was a lie as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held onto her so she could feel the little tremors running through him. "I'm sorry."

"What have you got be sorry for?" she whispered, drawing back to look at his face. He'd always been able to hide his shattered self from her before. But now it was raw and open, bleeding still.

He shrugged. "Being such a mess." He shivered suddenly, from head to foot. "Is he really gone, Tam? I saw him die...but it doesn't feel like he is." He ducked his head, and she knew he was trying not to cry. Her mother had put them in separate rooms after that first night, but Tam could still hear him crying at night, even if he didn't wake up screaming any more.

"He's gone," she said, and if Aspen's father had had a grave, she'd have spat on it.

"Tam!" her mother's strident voice said, before her determined face appeared round the door. "Hoodlum! Breakfast and then school."

A shadow of a smile crossed Aspen's face. "I'm not hungry," he murmured.

Jodie Slone glared at him. "I don't care if you're hungry or not. I've just spent half an hour cooking your breakfast so you can damn well eat it. And then you can change into something respectable."

Aspen opened his mouth to protest, and it made Tam feel better. He'd been a robot lately, not answering to anything.

"You've moped around enough," her mother said firmly. "Do you want my daughter to be miserable because you are?"

Harsh, Mom, thought Tam.

"No," Aspen said meekly, still clinging to her and sounding half-surprised. "I'll...I'll be in in a minute."

Jodie nodded curtly. "Good."

And maybe it was.

X - X - X - X - X

"Oh my god!" Lisa repeated as she came downstairs, looking pretty damn stunning in a clinging black top that set off the loose scarlet sarong. Vaje grinned appreciatively, his worries quelled. Then she saw him and her jaw dropped. "Oh my god," she said more faintly. "Please...I really can't take this now."

Lance chuckled. "Thought you said she was feisty," he remarked. Vaje scowled at him, and nipped up to find some clothes.

When he came back down, Lance was sitting at the table. The disgusted glare he'd turned on Ross was familiar, as was the glazed look in Ross's eyes.

Lisa had her head in her hands and concerned, he tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey. Lisa?"

"What?" she muttered.

"Something wrong? You didn't try to amputate my arm."

She glanced up, her face thoughtful and more than a little worried. He pulled up the chair next to her, ignoring Lance's raised eyebrows and pointedly turning his back on the Australian. "Just got a shock."

"Hell, I don't do it intentionally-"

She waved a hand. "No! Not that."

"What then?" he asked, and touched her dangling gold earrings that made her skin look even richer. "Pretty."

But she wasn't looking at him. Behind him, he heard a soft, "Well, bugger me," from Lance, and Vaje turned around.

Chatoya Irkil was standing in the doorway, her long black hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back. Not beautiful, Vaje thought, but there's strength in that one. And with her, with his blue eyes as utterly unfathomable as they had ever been, wearing that slender, serpentine smile was Blue Malefici. And something about the way they were stood - Vaje had never seen Malefici that close to anyone without being about to murder them - told him that the witch believed they were equals.

Well, damn me.

_Hook me up a new revolution  
Cause this one is a lie  
We sat around laughing and watched the last one die_


	28. Chapter Twenty Seven

Hello! :grin: Well, this is a novelty - two parts in a row on actual time! Thank you to:

**Ash, Jello Ink, Mandy, Eleyne, SA, Diomede, Orange, Heavengirl221, Meg, Too lazy to sign in, Jewel, BabyLoca, AnthyRose, girltype, Glare, Lotty, Sweetie Pie, Killashandra, Amy, Serena, Littleol'me, Emerald Redfern, **and the terrific **Tjones.  
**

The lyrics are from _A Beautiful Mess _by Jason Mraz (Album: We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.). I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Seven**

_Well, it kind of hurts when the kind of words you say  
Kind of turn themselves into blades  
And kind and courteous is a life, I've heard  
But it's nice to say that we played in the dirt_

Oh god, he ached.

Cougar Redfern lurched back into wakefulness, aware first of an intolerable pain in his shoulders, a screaming tugging feeling as if-

He was hanging from his arms.

The next thing that hit him was the smell. It reeked. He had to swallow several times in a bone-dry mouth to try not to retch. There was the cloying stench of old blood, mixed with ordure and an odd, familiar smell.

It was...it was-

A muscle twanged, and agony bolted through his leg, making him gasp.

"You're awake. I've been waiting."

Sandrine. The bitch! She'd...knocked him out, and brought him here and if he was free, he'd rip her into pieces, and drown in her blood.

"You left out the 'Obi-Wan'. Again," croaked Cougar feebly, wondering why his eyes wouldn't open. They seemed to be gummed shut. "What the hell have you done to me?"

"What you deserve. What you've always deserved," she said sharply, and a stinging slap cracked against his cheek. Cougar jolted back and smacked his head on the wall.

Stone. Definitely stone. And he couldn't hear anything but her ragged breathing.

"Look, I've not exactly led a nun's life," he began cautiously. "But-"

"You left me!" she howled, her voice a shrill demented wail. "You left me on that filthy enclave, holding a corpse with all that blood on me and those monsters waiting - and you ran!"

The anger boiled up. You were vermin, he wanted to hiss. You don't have any idea what they would have done to me. I wouldn't have died - oh no, that would have been too easy - I'd have lived, and I'd have lived every moment wishing I was dead!

But he didn't.

"I did," he said levelly. "And what are you going to do now? Kill me? You can if you want. I can't stop you. But do you think that'll make you any better than me?"

Cougar wrenched against whatever held him. Not rope. Too cold for that. Too smooth-

Chains. Where on earth had she gotten those?

Her laugh was soft, and almost a caress. "Cougar," she said very gently, "don't be such a fool."

This was the point where his stomach turned into lead, and began to sink very slowly. His arm muscles screamed, and even breathing was difficult.

"You were always such a fool," she sighed, and he thought he felt the imprint of her lips on his cheeks, though she must have been standing on tip-toe to do it.

"Such a fool."

X - X - X - X - X

As soon as Lisa had left for school, Chatoya found herself alone with a quartet of murderers. Hastily she perched on the worksurface, from where all four were visible and far away as possible.

Vaje, whose eyes had trailed Lisa out of the room almost wistfully, had said a polite good morning and was now trying to cook pancakes with a slightly panicky look. Ross was sitting on the floor, cross-legged and serene and probably skimming past the Milky Way right about now. At the table, a suntanned man in desperate need of a shave and a shower was examining the crossword, and kept giving her sharp, fleeting glances, while Blue leaned against the oven and watched the scene.

Oh boy.

"If you don't mind my asking," she directed at the man sitting at the table, "who are you?"

He gave her an amiable grin. "Lancelot Stormshot. But you can call me Lance. I look after Pursang in Asia and Australasia." His accent was laidback and almost comforting. But there was a mercenary edge to his smile, and that same inhuman gleam lurking in the sea-green eyes. "And I don't scare you."

"Practice," she answered. "Tell me about what you do, then. What does the job entail?"

He frowned. "Don't you know?"

Blue chuckled, and the sound was like a cold finger sliding over her collarbones. "Ms Irkil is not intimately acquainted with the workings of Pursang. Or any other organisation."

He was wrong on that count, but Chatoya had no urge to enlighten him.

"Eh?" Lance - vampire, she guessed from the silver that suddenly spiked into his eyes - blinked. "What is she then, freelance? Company hit-witch?"

"I'm not an assassin," she said.

That caught their attention. Even Ross looked up, his mouth curling unpleasantly.

"You're...not an assassin?" the Australian said carefully. "You don't kill people for money?"

Almost amused, Chatoya half-smiled. "No. I don't kill people full stop."

Vaje gave a crack of laughter. "You're kidding me? Witch, I'm impressed."

"I'm horrified!" snapped Lance. "You mean we've got some incompetent plant-loving, dancing pacifist running us? No chance." He stood up and kicked his chair back. "Any one of us could take you out."

Chatoya somehow had the feeling he wasn't talking about a trip to the theatre. So this was what Blue had meant; this was what she would have to face with every assassin she came across.

The magic was waiting for her call, fizzling under her skin with feather-softness. And she reached beyond it, along that odd connection that ran to Blue and that poisonous well of dragon power. If her soulmate knew, his expression gave no sign; he was perfectly relaxed, an exotic creature in her home.

"Try it," she advised.

Lance's face went taut, and suddenly she realised just how remarkable that lazy, blasé act was. Nothing kind or idle about the mask-like expression, or the alien silver eyes. She just saw his muscles bunch-

Nownownow!

And the magic left her hands as he moved, slamming into him with a little edge of fear to sharpen it.

He was hurled into the wall. Everyone heard the harsh, slick snap of his back breaking, along with the twiggy sounds of less important bones. His rough breathing filled the room.

"Ouch," he said finally. "That was bloody painful."

Vaje snorted. "For most of us it would be screaming agony."

"Yeah, well, you get stung by a bluey, Vaje, then you'll know what screaming agony is," came the retort. "Witch girl, I'd get up and bow, but I really can't right now."

"A bluey?" she asked, entranced by the way she could see his body healing. Much faster than a shapeshifter, he would be in one piece in a minute or two.

"Bluebottle. It's a jellyfish." One arm was feebly held up so she could see the lattice of thin lavender marks. "When I was about eight, I was boogie boarding and fell off. Turned out it was bluebottle season. Just lucky my parents heard me screaming and came to help me out. No way I could have got myself out of the water. I wouldn't wish that pain on my worst enemy."

"Yeah?" Vaje drawled, and something in his tone oozed disapproval as he turned his head, achingly slowly, to glare at Blue. For a moment, he held the empty, pitiless stare, and then his eyes dropped, as her own had times beyond counting. "I hear they use 'em on initiates at Nightfire."

No...she thought, and took one look at the smile that was astonishing as dawn on Blue. But yes. Oh yes. Of course he would.

Lance sat bolt upright, and fell back with a faint, high moan. "What bastard did that?" he demanded from his prone position.

"That would be me," Blue murmured coolly. "It's a rather good way to test their pain threshold."

Lance let of a stream of invective that impressed Chatoya considerably. Obviously he'd gone to Cougar's school of charm.

Chatoya tried to block the image from her mind. She'd seen jellyfish, in tanks, and even the sight of the creatures repulsed her. What, oh what, had she gotten herself into?

"What do you do then?" she said brusquely to Ross. Goddess, she was in another world now. "Columbia?"

Vaje's grin flickered at the corner of her eye, and he gave her a not-terribly discreet thumbs up. Yes...he was on her side, and letting her know it. Lisa might have something to do with that.

The vampire raised his head as if it was heavy and stared at her with frosted, unfocused eyes. "Europe." His voice was clear as ever, with just that high edge of a whine that nicked at her hearing. "I look after Europe and Russia. And I do it damn well."

"True," Lance agreed, sitting up gingerly. "But you'd do it better if you stopped chasing the dragon, or should that be the woodchuck?"

A strange, throaty snarl rose from Ross's throat, and he moved into a crouch. Chatoya could see the bunching of his shoulders, and flicked out her witchfire like an elastic band snapping. He jolted back violently.

"Not here," she said softly. "I won't have you squabbling like children."

"And what will you have us doing?" demanded the Australian. And suddenly all three were watching her with fixed intent. "Stop killing, I suppose. Shall we plant trees instead, and morris dance?"

Chatoya had been thinking that question over since the moment Blue had told her this was hers. And she knew that if she stopped them, there would be open rebellion. These people were bred to kill; it was woven into every fibre of their being, and surely it was better to have them controlled than a couple of hundred unstable assassins running about.

Blue had always told her she couldn't kill, and assumed she disapproved of every death. Not so. She had spent many of the early years of her life working for and involved with the angels. And if nothing else, it had taught her that no death is easy, and not every murder is undeserved.

"Well, appealing though you'd be in a set of bells," she said slowly, wishing Blue would show some expression, "I don't think so. For now...I want all contracts on anyone under sixteen cancelled."

Raised eyebrows, except for Ross who stared at her flatly, like a javelin aimed between her eyes. Vaje, she saw, half-smiled.

"And I want to see every contract; I want a reason for everyone you kill. And I decide which kills you make." She drew in breath, wishing her stomach wasn't quivering so madly. Let them listen. Let them obey. "Tell me what else you do. It can't just be killing."

Respect grew on Lance's hardened face. He nodded. "Not many people realise that," he told her calmly. "They figure we're just a bunch of butchers. There's a lot of research. In Pursang, we concentrate on bloodlines; checking out who's pure and who isn't. Most are, of course, but there's always the odd one." His eyes slid to Blue furtively, before darting away. "New weapons, and ways to improve old ones. We also hunt for dragons and old monsters; try to find out where they're sleeping. And make sure no one wakes 'em."

"You might think," Vaje cut in before she could ask the question, his warm eyes heated unusually, "we'd be just the sort to wake them. But we don't share our power."

"Believe it or not," the blond vampire said, "Ross here is one of our best for that. He's got the knack of translating the old scrolls, and if you want a spell to do with dragons, he's your boy. Eidetic memory. Got 'em all down in that head of his."

And it's a very good job he can't cast any of them. The words hung unspoken in the air.

She nodded and listened as the pair expounded on Pursang; she'd had no idea just how much went on in this mysterious organisation. How many worked for them; how only ten witches worked in the whole organisation, the stocks of investments and wealth they had accumulated. The way they took in orphaned children to train up; and the way they killed the ones who weren't good enough.

For a good three hours she sat and listened. Blue wandered off somewhere in the middle of it, and the trio seemed to relax when he was gone. Yes, she wouldn't have believed it - but they were afraid of him.

The enormity of what she had taken on was breathtaking, and Chatoya could hardly take it all in.

Finally, they wound down, and Vaje said tersely, "Well, that's about it."

It. It was a pretty big it.

"Right," she murmured, feeling lost in a wave of names and arcane practices. "Can you get me a file or something?"

"Till then, we can carry on as normal?" prompted Lance with a gleam in his eye. Chatoya had to wonder what was going on in Asia and Australasia that Aspen hadn't known about.

"For now," she agreed tentatively. "But no kids under sixteen. And I want all the contracts. And a report of everything that's gone on in the last six months." When she would have time to read any of it was another matter.

A broad, sunlit grin was her reward. "Good choice," Lance said approvingly. "If you can't beat 'em..."

"You're not a sadist," quipped Vaje. He'd been very fidgety in the last hour. "Hey, Chatoya...you done?"

We're on first name terms? she thought dazedly. A pounding headache had set up home at her temples, and she just wanted to go back to some vestige of normality.

"I guess so," she said.

But it was barely begun.

X - X - X - X - X

How on earth could she be at school on a day like this? Lisa Ochai still felt like her world had been smashed into pieces with a very large mallet and scattered at her feet only to cut her each time she tried to gather them together.

Toya and Blue. Blue and Toya. Chatoya Irkil and Blue Malefici.

Fred and Ginger, yes. Sonny and Cher, au naturel, Toya and Blue...?

No matter how she said it, it sounded wrong.

The day slid by in a hazy, shocked daze. She floated through physics, found English all Greek to her, and simply couldn't make maths add up. As ever on a Monday, she saw virtually nothing of Cougar, who'd been moved down in several courses. If she was quieter than usual, that was submerged by the massive fight between the Pack and most of the football team that was the talk of the school. No one said anything when she flitted out to get some air and some perspective.

She was catching the last of the sunshine at lunch, and slowly wrapping her mind around this odd concept, when a shadow fell over her. Lisa glanced up, and felt an odd flip of her heart.

"Hey," she said softly. "How are you?"

Cern Akafren shrugged, but didn't sit down. Still too skinny, she thought despairingly. Still apart. Why couldn't he see that they'd only help? They were his friends; they understood grief. Gods, how many people had they lost, how many of them had only memories and fading photographs to remember someone by?

"Much the same. Look, I was just wondering if you could do me a favour." The deep crushed violet of his eyes was compelling as ever. If only he'd smile. Just once.

"Of course...Cern, why don't you come round one night? For dinner. It'll just be you, Toya and me." And three decidedly disturbing men, but that's irrelevant right now. "Please - we miss you."

A decisive shake of his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. In fact...that's what I want to talk about."

His clothes were different, she realised gradually. They were grubbier. Smeared with dirt, with leaves and grass stuck to them. And he himself was too; the wavy mahogany hair hadn't been washed in a while, and his face had the lean look of someone always hungering. Someone hardened.

He looked like the Pack.

"I...don't think I should see you guys any more," he stated quite calmly, with only the merest flicker of pain to tell her this was her Cern. The prankster, the philosopher, the healer. "You only remind me of what I've lost. I need to start over, without her or anything that reminds me of her. You're the past."

A jagged rock seemed to have lodged in her throat. You idiot, she wanted to say. You callous, thoughtless _idiot_, how can you say that? Any one of us would have lain down and died for you, and we nearly goddamn well did while your girlfriend, your soulmate was running round murdering anything that didn't tickle her fancy and did tickle her palate.

"Don't say that!" she protested. "We're friends - you can't just put us aside. You can't expect us to put you aside."

"I'm asking you to." He stared down at her, hands jammed into the pockets of his baggy trousers. Past him, Lisa saw the skulking form of Romulus and the tough expression of Felicity Serafine, both watching Cern. "The Pack - they've helped me. And I can help them. They need a healer."

So do you.

"You guys don't need me hanging round and bringing you down. I just need...peace."

"And you find it with them?" She tried hard to keep the hurt from her tones, and nearly succeeded.

A muscle tensed in his jaw. He smelled different too; not CK Be, but cut grass and river-reek, and the wild odour of wolves. He'd been shifting again, and it worried Lisa. Cern hardly ever shifted - he wasn't used to how much it could affect you. Become a beast, and soon you would think like one. "It's close enough."

"Cern-"

"I want you to all to leave me alone, Lise. Please. If you're really my friends, you'll do it." The last turn of the knife, though he didn't know it. "Okay?"

Gazing at his set face, the wolf seemed to bristle under his skin like a mirage. He was further from them than ever, losing himself, losing everything, if he'd only see that. But it was his choice.

"I'll tell them." She dropped her eyes, feeling the familiar hot prickling under her lids. "Happy?"

The sunlight fell over her again, taking away the cold he'd brought, but Lisa didn't look up to see him go.

"Damn it," she muttered, cuffing away tears. "Damn him." Her hands tore at the grass uselessly, and then she thought how Toya always nagged at her for destroying something living and of how she probably never would when that snake was done with her, and felt even more miserable.

"Lisa?"

Humiliation shivered through her at that rough voice. The last thing she wanted was for Vaje to see her crying; it was so girly and embarrassing. She didn't want to be weak in front of him.

"Go away or I'll kick your ass," she forced out in a slightly strangled voice.

But he was crouching down in front of her, short, but with so much strength packed into his rangy body. "You know," he said, those bold bronze eyes flickering as he saw her crying, "I'll take the risk."

"Go away, please," she implored. Don't see me like this.

"Nu-uh," he told her gently, and sat down by her. And then to her surprise, she felt him clumsily put an arm around her, and hug her tentatively. "See? Now I know you're upset. My arm's still attached."

Her laugh was more a choke. "I thought you mighty warrior types ran at the sight of tears."

"I'm no stranger to 'em," he admitted gruffly, and she cocked her head to see his profile grim. "I lost my wife and my kid...oh, god, years back. But I still miss 'em. I miss everything that could have been. And I'm guessing the way you feel for that idiot lad-"

"He's not an idiot!"

"He is if he's turning you down," he shot back, and the desert hair caught gold, copper, burgundy in the sun, matching the flecks in his eyes. There was no sympathy there, only bluntness. "It's plain to see that you love him. He's your friend, right? And maybe it should be more."

"He turned me down," she said tiredly, used to the state she was in. Feeling this deep, painful love for Cern. But she wasn't sure any more that she liked him. Could she like him after the way he had treated her?

"He's a moron, then."

"No, he's..." She paused at his arched eyebrow. "What?"

"You really think that?"

She bit the inside of her cheek and then it poured out. "No. Not all the time. Sometimes I think he's blind, and stupid, and so wrapped up in self-pity that I want to slap him but-" She could feel her face crumpling. "But I'm his friend! I shouldn't feel like that. It's horrible, and-"

He clapped a hand gracelessly over her mouth. "Why? Sounds to me likes he's hurt you. It's okay to feel that way. If he wants to be like that, you let him. But don't spend your time hankering after that idiot." A rueful grin. "'Specially when here are those of us who will appreciate you."

Lisa scrutinized him carefully, for a sign of ridicule. An aristocrat's face, with those defined bones, and the proud arch of his nose, and the curving mouth. A little network of scars that she'd never noticed wriggled like baby snakes down from his ear to his jaw, shiny against his bronze skin. And something made her breath freeze at those warm eyes that held no fear, and let her know exactly what he felt.

"And I would," he said softly. "I may not love you, but I like you. And I think...you might enjoy yourself." He wrinkled his nose. "I hope you would."

"I don't do commitment," she said shortly. Eons ago, she'd tried it, but it hadn't worked and since, she'd avoided anything that might lead to wounds upon her heart. Until Cern.

"Good. Neither do I."

"We fight all the time."

"Healthy conflict," he drawled. "C'mon, give it a go. I'm not asking you to stop loving the idiot. But you're...something."

She eyed him. "No strings?"

"Not unless you're into bondage," he quipped and laughed as she Chinese-burned his wrist. "That's more like-ouch, hey!" Next minute, he'd wrenched free easily, and pinned her to the floor. "Now, this," Vaje said, with a wicked gleam to those ochre eyes, "is convenient."

Maybe, she thought cautiously, casual is just what I need. Someone who I'll enjoy myself with.

"We could give it a try," she allowed cautiously and was rewarded by a proud grin, before he leaned over and kissed her forehead. Lisa was surprised by the electric tingle it sent through her, the same buzz she usually only got from fighting. "Maybe a little more."

X - X - X - X - X

It was almost a relief to slump in the Black Dahlia. Chatoya moaned, and just let her body unravel all its knots and tensions. What she wouldn't give for a massage from Cern Akafren, who had the most amazing hands she'd ever met. The first time he'd offered to ease her aches, she'd suddenly understood just why he was so popular with the female population of Ryars Valley.

Jepar wasn't here, as he usually was. Monday was their afternoon off, and they'd often spent it chattering idly and trying to fix the place up. Her head lolled back on the cushion, and she shut her eyes, sighing with pure relief.

The scraping creak of the door made her grimace slightly.

"Took your time," she said. "I thought you were windsurfing."

"Wrong person, I'm afraid," a voice of tempting darkness corrected. And if she opened her eyes, there he was, looming over her with that coolly amused expression. Blue as the sky, and blue as the sea, and blue as the misery he brought.

"Did you miss me?" she said airily. "It's not like you to seek me out."

His eyes narrowed, and she thought how elegantly they set off the slanting cheekbones. "Don't flatter yourself. Though mind you, no one else will do it - carry on."

She smiled sourly and sat up so fast that her hair lashed him in the face. It wasn't much, but sometimes, pettiness was worth all the virtue in the world. "I'm guessing you didn't come here to insult me. After all - you can do it from a distance now."

"Unfortunately, not everything can be done from a distance." He tilted his head sideways. "And this is one of them. I'm going to give you a chance, Chatoya Irkil."

"Newsflash, Blue. I don't need chances from you."

"Newsflash, witch of mine," he whispered. "The game just changed."

His eyes had grown icy, chilling her. "Charitable of you to tell me, then," she said, pretending nonchalance. "Sometimes I think there is actually a person inside you."

"Would you stop trying to discover my heart of gold?" Blue said. "I am not about to reveal a sudden passion for helping old ladies across the road, or collecting stray cats, nor do I donate half my money to charity religiously."

"Most people have a softer side. Even enormous jerks."

"I have a hard side and a harder..." The sinner's eyes overruled the saint's smile. "Side."

She gave him a withering look, but it had no effect. "What did you want to tell me?"

"Just one thing," he said simply. "If you are serious about a relationship, witch of mine...I will use it against you. I will use it to hurt you. And it will hurt."

She matched him, stare for stare, though her eyes were not as inhuman, or otherworldly. No strange skies filled her soul. "It already has," she told him. "I'm used to it."

He didn't smile, or laugh, or do anything but step back, and bow to her with a flourish. "Remember your words," he warned. "Remember how they taste, and if you don't like them...watch out. You may have to eat them."

He strolled out, but Chatoya had already shut her eyes, pretending she wasn't at all affected by him. For a moment, he'd given her a way out, and she hadn't taken it.

She was dicing with the devil now.

When the door squealed again, what could have been seconds or minutes later, she thought for a flimsy instant that it was Blue, but she opened her eyes onto a worried pair of emerald eyes.

"Toya," Jepar gasped breathlessly. "I've been looking for you all over! You weren't at school, or at home..."

She frowned. What on earth had got her lanky shapeshifter friend so riled? "Jepar? What's wrong?"

A deep breath, and something building like a maelstrom in the clear gaze. Then the words tumbled out, and she sat bolt upright.

"How would you like to be a dragon?"

_And what a beautiful mess this is  
It's like taking a guess  
When the only answer is yes_


	29. Chapter Twenty Eight

Well, apologies for how long this latest update took! I didn't realise FFN was working again. (There went that run of updating!) Thanks to:

**Orange, Heavengirl221, Tjones, Izzy, Meg, Too lazy to sign in, BabyLoca, Mandy, Ellie, Jewel, Jello Ink, Linnet Jo, Little Ol' Me, Eleyne, SA, Maia, Charmaine, Trainee Angel, Queen Kat, **and **GoddessNMB1.** Thank you all so much! It's totally fantastic of you to let me know what you think.

The lyrics are from the divine Jimmy Eat World's _The Middle _(Album: Jimmy Eat World). I hope you enjoy reading!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Twenty Eight**

_Live right now.  
Just be yourself  
It doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else._

The eyes staring into hers were earnest, flickering with the soft spring fires that had burned for her as an unknown stranger, and burned for her as a friend, burned for her and burned in her. But at that moment, they couldn't have been more alien.

The question rolled around Chatoya Irkil's head.

_How would you like to be a dragon?_

"I...I'm sorry," she said almost reflexively, her mind rearranging itself into something resembling order. "Jepar...?"

He sat back a little, so she could see the strands of gleaming blond hair that tangled up with his eyelashes, and brushed the very edges of his cheekbones. "How would you like to be a dragon?" he said, and half-smiled.

"Have you been at the catnip again?"

"Nope. It was a serious question."

She blinked several times, just to make sure that she wasn't hallucinating. But no, this was real, however surreal it appeared. "It's a _weird_ question. What do you mean?"

Curiosity would get her every time. It was one of the main reasons she and Jepar were so close; their insatiable curiosity. It had led them into some very deep trouble - and led them right out of it, too.

"It's...Tali." He swallowed hard, and a touching bashfulness quieted his voice. "She's not happy as a dragon. Not at all. And I know you'll probably just say no, and you probably should too - but Toya, you've handled dragon powers before."

"Not very well," she pointed out levelly, wondering why on earth she wasn't just slamming this suggestion down right now. It was idiocy. Worse, it was insanity. "I nearly killed you."

He lifted a shoulder. "Ye-ah...but c'mon, everyone tries to kill me at some point. You just set the trend." That affectionate grin showed off his sharp canines. "And up until Blue - look, you'd been walking round with those powers for what, three months? And nothing happened."

She had never thought of it that way. But this - this was different. "I didn't know then. If I had, maybe it would have been different. Jepar...dragon powers eat you alive."

"Not you. You're..." He ducked his head, and gave a startled laugh. "Strong. Maybe stronger than any of us."

"Oh, come _on_."

The jade eyes danced like sunlight striking a lake, and there was genuine conviction in his words that surprised her. Jepar was Nightworld. He could heal in a blink, he could change shape and instinctually use powers that it had taken her years to master.

"No," he reiterated firmly. "Toya - you're a witch. But look at you! You've carried dragon powers, you've controlled storms-"

"With those powers," she interrupted, but to her amazement, he shook his head.

"No. Not entirely..." His expression was solemn, and a little awed, like a child walking into the hallowed silence of a cathedral. "I never noticed it until Cern mentioned it, but it never rains where you are. Not unless you're unhappy."

"Coincidence," she said flatly.

The cheetah gave her a blatantly sceptical look that she ignored. Influencing the weather was simply impossible. The power it required - that would have to be phenomenal.

The same kind of power that could banish a wraith? A tiny, niggling voice asked maliciously. The kind of power that broke Blue's spell when he was trying to kill Jal? The kind of power that overcame dragon magic? The kind of power that stopped Blue from drowning you-

Ridiculous, she told herself, stamping securely on the voice. Just luck, and the soulmate link.

"Fine," Jepar said, and leaned forward, palms on his knees. "Then tell me what your surname means, Toya? Irkil?"

Oh...god, this was ridiculous.

"Earth child," muttered Chatoya darkly. "But it's just a name."

He heaved a sigh that sounded almost exasperated. "It isn't," he said truthfully. "Toya, I've seen you do things no witch should be able to! Sometimes, I swear, you don't even know you're doing it. Cern can't use his magic the way you do. You've done spells that even crones quail at!"

I've done spells you'd quail at, she thought, and cringed at the recollection of the lonely dead, pleading with her as though she were some sorceress, not just a high school girl with veins woven in enchantment.

"It's...necessity. It makes people do desperate things."

A groan. "Bullshit. Fine, you want proof - tell me, Toya...who else could have survived Blue Malefici?"

She'd been waiting for this, with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Her oldest friend, the one who knew the most about her...but he didn't know just how deeply her life was entwined with Blue's.

"The soulmate link." She couldn't keep the triumph out her voice, even though it wasn't terribly civil to gloat. Goddess, she just wanted people to stop suggesting she was different. She wasn't. She was just someone who'd been in the wrong place at the right time too often.

Jepar cocked an eyebrow. "Won't keep you alive. If Blue wanted to kill you - and I got the impression he did - it wouldn't have stopped him. So you persuaded him somehow, Toya, and even if it's nothing to do with magic, you're still strong. You've survived *him*."

It made her pause. Goddess...yes. All along she had been assuming it was the soulmate link that stopped her killing him. But of course - that was untrue. Men and women through the ages had murdered their soulmates easily, casually, sanely. It would affect them; but it wouldn't kill them.

Yet something had tied her and Blue together. Something had bound their thoughts together, and the only thing she knew that could even come close to doing that was the mirror spell she had once cast on him; a spell that took only three things; blood, and power, and a reflection.

But she hadn't cast it again.

Consciously.

No...but the thought was harder to dismiss. How many spells sprung into her head when she was attacked? How often had instinct led her to choose just the right hex at just the right moment? And what if she had picked that one in the moment when the wolves had attacked her, knowing that it would bring Blue...

It was mad. Surely it couldn't be right.

Surely not...

"Toya?" Jepar touched her wrist lightly. "You've got the strangest look on your face." The British was a little stronger, fortified by concern.

"You...might be right," she allowed grudgingly. "About some of it. Not all of it. Just some of it. But Jay, what has any of this got to do with being a dragon?"

Being a dragon. What would that mean? She could remember easily the squirming, oil-slick power of the dragons, flowing under her skin and pulling at her as though it were the lodestone and she the magnet. How simple it was; magic that yearned to be used, did not wait to be tapped as her own did.

It would make me equal to Blue.

Dangerous thought. Very dangerous thought.

Jepar shrugged, utterly unaware of her inner battle. "It means you can survive, Toya. It wouldn't eat you up like it does Tali. She hates it, she doesn't want it, and she fights it. She thinks she's a monster. David didn't ask before he made her a dragon. Did you know he had to break every bone in her body just to change her?"

Chatoya swallowed. No wonder Tali was so cold. How else could she deal with that? With believing herself an atrocity? "No...I didn't."

"You told me once that magic will hurt you if you fight it, or if you don't want it."

"It will." She knew the lesson well. Some magic would hurt you either way, but the dark kinds were fed by hatred and fear. It was gasoline on naked flames. "But I don't want to be a dragon. I like being a witch. I don't want immortality. You guys can keep it."

He nodded, as if it was what he had expected. Perhaps he had. "I guess I phrased the question badly. I know you don't want to be one. And I don't want Tali to die. So I thought...why not do what your brother did, when he stole those powers that he passed onto you?"

And that I passed onto Blue.

He continued softly, "Why not cast a spell to take them from her? That way you can have all the powers, but still be mortal - and Tali won't have to fight them any more." His eyes met hers, curiously powerful despite his near-naivety. "You can stop Blue hassling you."

Ah...

"Jay..." she began, shifting uncomfortably. For a moment, she wished they were somewhere else, but he had to know sometime.

"Uh-oh. I know that sound."

Her smile didn't feel like it fit. Jepar was like her brother. He was family. And he wasn't going to like this. "It's a _big_ uh-oh."

"Hit me with it," he said, flexing his hands and shadow-boxing at the air. "I'm a man, I can take it."

"It's Blue."

X - X - X - X - X

"Isn't it just?" Tam said with a relieved smile, and gave a deep, contented sigh as Aspen stopped walking to wrap his arms tight around her. In the daytime at least, he could pretend it was okay. She knew now how good he was at pretending, at hiding that vulnerability that was chum to a certain kind of shark. But she didn't seem to love him any less for it.

"Beautiful," he agreed, looking up at the pastel-streaked sky, with the sun already throwing their shadows long across the grass. Old sins cast long shadows, he thought. But I supposed it was supposed to be our sins, not...not our fathers.

He's gone. Oh, is he really gone? Am I free?

No. Not free. Chained by those old sins, those long shadows tied to his feet. But maybe one day...

"Beautiful," he said, turning his eyes to Tam, and felt an urge to do something for her. He always felt as though he should be showering her with flowers and gems, just because she was Tam. But now they were passing the shops, and in the window of the candy store, he could see all kinds of temptation that he knew Tam would love. She was a shameless chocolate addict, and one of the few girls he knew who never worried about what they ate.

"I won't be a minute," Aspen said shyly, and kissed her on the cheek. She smelled intoxicating, of peaches and cream. "I'll catch you up."

He ran into the chocolate shop, trying not to meet anyone's eyes. He hadn't let on to Tam how much people scared him, how he kept thinking they might turn back into his father, like they always did in his dreams. Whispering...

_Did you miss me, son?_

with the light glinting from the crucifix, and the rainbow eyes pounding into him, red, gold, emerald, but somehow all falling back into the same colour; black. Blackest ashes of his life, and black of bruises, and black of oblivion.

He nearly shuddered before he remembered he was in the candy store, and he was buying Tam white chocolate just to see her surprise and her smile, though she'd gladly give him either for nothing at all.

He was just paying when-

_Aspen!_

Her voice was shaky; she wasn't very good at all at calling him, but now it was shaky because she was afraid.

_Tam?_ he said, and somehow it was easier to be strong when she couldn't be. _Tam, what's wrong?_

_It was my..._ she half-laughed, but he could feel her fear, brushing over him like stinging nettles in the breeze. _My spider sense. The one Blue gave me because you made him do it. There's a guy..._

Flash; china-doll features, lit by glass-cold eyes. The fixed smile, small and tight and fake, and the bouncing, cheerful walk that wasn't quite in rhythm, that was weaving a little over the pavement.

Ross?

Oh my god...Aspen thought sickly. Lance wasn't kidding when he said that guy had problems. Jeez, and I thought he was just having the odd hit to liven up the weekend.

_Tam...stop and tie your shoelace. Can you get a good look at him?_ Aspen rephrased it hastily. _At his arms?_

He was in another world as the shopkeeper handed over the chocolate and his change. For the first time in too long, he was himself again; Aspen Martin who was out of the enclave and Aspen Martin who showed no fear to the world. Aspen, who had walked through fire and fog with Blue Malefici and Therese Orage, and lived where so many had died.

And then he could see through her eyes to Ross's bare arms in the sleeveless dark-green top - and his vampire vision could catch what Tam couldn't at this distance. Puncture marks. Needle marks.

He knew all the symptoms of carbon poisoning when he saw it; loss of balance, lack of co-ordination, but the marks were the giveaway. Aspen had tried it once, and never again.

It was too much like being back in that dark room, with the monsters lurking outside and inside his mind.

_Get into a shop,_ he ordered.

Her voice was higher, and breathy. _He's looking at me._

_Go!_

_I can't,_ she cried out and sure enough, he could feel the pull of another, immensely fierce mind at hers. He was influencing her, and Aspen reached out to try and tell Ross-

_Fangs off,_ Ross ordered in a near-normal voice. His mental tones were serrated, raking pain thorugh Aspen's head. _She's marked, Martin, and I got to her first._

_She's my soulmate!_ he snapped back, managing to drag himself out of the shop and onto the street. She was only a little way up, huddled against a lamppost, his angel somehow made into a helpless girl again.

Ross was close - so close, running his fingers over the scorched black spiral that Blue had put onto Tam's arm because he was Blue, and he was cruel. That spiral was a death-mark to any assassin who saw it.

Ross turned his head fractionally, and Aspen began to run, until his feet pounded quick as his heart. _Is she?_ New things in those words; interest, and horror, and loathing. _Then I'll do you a favour and-_

Tam kneed him.

Ross was doubled over when the punch hit the back of his neck, and probably in some serious pain when she used the footsweep Aspen had been teaching her for just this moment. There was a definite cut-off shriek when he hit the floor, and Aspen was grinning foolishly by the time Tam, using every dirty trick he had taught her, very uncivilly jumped up and down on his back.

People were staring. He wiped their minds with a flourish, hopelessly proud of her, and aware now of the sweat trickling down his back. He had been so frightened - so afraid this would happen, as it had, when he couldn't help.

He couldn't resist putting a sly foot into Ross's nose when he got over there. He picked her up and hugged her as hard as he could, before he remembered that would probably crush her lungs, and tried to relax some.

"Are you okay?" he gasped out, checking her over for broken bones and beaming all the while. Oh, thank god Ross was too doped to have the wit to keep her in thrall. "Are you sure? Really?"

"Fine," she reassured, flushed and trembling a little. "Oh god...I thought he was mad."

"He is," Aspen said bleakly, making a note to tell Chatoya Irkil. She probably knew - she was a smart one - but he wanted to be sure. "I thought..."

"So did I, for a moment." Her face was so human, so totally opposite to the blankness and perfection he had been surrounded by. Lovely, he thought, indescribably lovely with her great expressive eyes, and the clammy hands that clutched at him - him! - as if he was something she needed.

He'd never been needed before.

And he liked it.

X - X - X - X - X

"Spare me, please," Lance Stormshot groaned, with a hand over his eyes. "You two are so bloody twee that I may just have to kill myself."

Vaje, who was tickling Lisa ruthlessly, amid trying to wrestle her to the floor, found time to say, "She won't give me the remote."

"Yes I will!" the made vampire protested, and promptly hit him over the head with it. "Get off, you lout!"

Lance rolled his eyes. He had to admit, it was a long time since he'd seen Vaje with anything but a glower on his face, and if the vampire girl made him happy, well, good on him. She wasn't his type; Lance preferred his ladies with a little less bite, but she suited Vaje down to and - the Australian winced as she headlocked him - onto the ground.

He had to wonder why he was here though. Didn't seem necessary for him to fly all this way just so some witch could tell him to can a few contracts. But then - it had been Malefici who rang. Malefici who fixed everything up; so maybe it was Malefici who wanted them here. He'd sure been put out when Rina hadn't turned up.

And Lance had caught just a flicker of a thought - _onetoofew_ - before that icy, alien stare had made him want to get out of Malefici's sight. The guy made his skin crawl.

One too few.

It was what Lance always felt he'd had on a night out, but aside from that, it was worrying. One too few for what? Hell, they were talking about a guy who'd use jellyfish to test people's pain threshold. This was the guy who'd sat next to a girl in a bar and slid a knife between her ribs so sweetly that she didn't even squeak before she died.

A little bit of following might be in order, Lance decided. Couldn't hurt.

"Oh, dammit, guys," he muttered and threw a cushion in their direction, where Lisa was trying to extricate herself from a particularly evil hold. "Cut out the flirting, and get a room!"

The coyote turned the heat of those odd orange-gold eyes on Lance. "Okay," he said chirpily, and let the girl go. Vaje Chusson? Chirpy? Gawd, what was the world coming to?

Maybe an end, if Malefici had his way.

X - X - X - X - X

Jepar blinked, and the sunny smile was wiped off. "What's he done?"

Me, she nearly said, and checked herself just in time because he'd get completely the wrong idea.

"It's more what I've done," she told him cautiously. "Promise me you won't throw a Cougar."

Her shapeshifter friend eyed her, his features hard. She had always thought there was an odd contrast in Jepar; the Nightworld and the boy living side by side. One minute, he could be so delightful and amiable and the next, like steel flipping from a velvet scabbard, that hard glitter was in his eyes, his body tensed for a fight.

"I'll try," was all she got in a very guarded mumble.

She cleared her throat, as if that would make it sound any better. "I'm dating him."

Jepar sat absolutely still. "Hating?"

"Dating." She was pulling at her fingernails again, and made herself stop. If she acquired nervous habits telling people they were dating, by the time she got round to an actual 'date', her fingers would be worn down to the knuckle. "With a D."

He looked straight at her, but it didn't seem to have dawned on him. "Not an H."

"Not unless there's a D in front of it."

Silence. A flat, odd silence that felt as though all the noise had been smothered by this single, salient fact that had dropped like a blanket upon it.

"_Are you crazy?_"

It was a near-scream. Jepar was on his feet, hands clenched by his sides with his eyes set aflame and for the first time since Chatoya had known him, glowing with the coal-fire red of the Nightworld.

"Possibly," she acknowledged, unsure of how to react with this angry creature, and settling for impassivity. "But there's a good reason-"

He was nearly levitating in rage. "Suicidal tendencies?"

Feeling oddly calm, and wondering if this was how Blue felt when faced with her, Chatoya wound a piece of her hair round her fingers and started to plait it. "I thought you were trying not to throw a Cougar-"

"This is not a Cougar! This is a Class-A, certificated, government-approved, signed and sealed hissy fit!" he shouted. "Chatoya Irkil, as your friend and your ex-boyfriend, I am _not_ going to let you date that...that..."

"Bastard?"

"See? Now you're being nice about him!" He glared at her, and his voice dropped a few notes. "For crying out loud, you turned down Cougar to date chronic Sonic?"

"No..."

She saw him open his mouth to protest, and before she was even aware of it, Chatoya had sketched a few symbols in the air, and his lips were magically sealed.

"He challenged me, okay?" she said levelly, and gave him a shaky smile. "I took him up on it. And - look, Jepar, you've told me I'm strong. Don't you think I know what I'm doing?" Mostly. Partially. Fractionally. "Keep your enemies close, remember?"

She let go of the hex, and he rubbed at his mouth, brow furrowed. "I don't like this," he said finally.

"I wasn't expecting any of you to dig out the champagne and start planning the wedding." She saw his expression. "Figure of speech!"

"Fine." He was looking at her as though she was something new and perhaps a little perilous. "I know. I know the more I try to talk you out of it, the more you're going to do it anyway. But Toya-"

"I know," she interrupted, half-relieved at what he was going to say but - but half-disappointed too. How strange... "It's definitely not a good idea to have dragon powers now."

Her cheetah friend snorted. "Just the opposite. I think you need them now."

"What?" Chatoya gaped, her moss-soft eyes, that seemed to Jepar to be a little more flinty now, wide. "I mean - Jepar, I won't deny that it might be useful. But it's dangerous."

"So we try it out for a while," he said firmly. "If it works - we carry on. If it doesn't...I try and figure out something else. Toya, please. Tali's so unhappy, and you're the only person I'd trust with that kind of power."

Maybe it was his beseeching eyes. Maybe it was his desperate tone, or her own thoughts, whispering that perhaps it was time to up the stakes. Either way, something in her weakened.

"I don't have the spell," she said feebly. And then a honey-slow Australian voice flitted through her psyche;

_If you want a spell to do with dragons, Ross's your boy._

"...but," she added, slowly. "I know where I can find it."

"You'll do it?"

Two pairs of green eyes met, and both were so different from how they had been three years ago. Older, maybe a little wiser, and far more sorrowed. But still, somehow, the same. Still just a boy and a girl. Still just Chatoya and Jepar, whatever else they were.

"I'll do it," she said.

_It just takes some time, little girl,  
In the middle of the ride  
Everything, everything will be just fine  
Everything, everything will be all right._


	30. Chapter Twenty Nine

Much love and chocolate spread sandwiches to those of you who commented last time. Thanks to:

**Mandy, SA, Jewel, GoddessNMB1, Queen Kat, Orange, Serena, Bobbie, Dianna, Martha, Heavengirl221, Charmaine, Ellie, Ash, Dracula's Daughter, Sylvia, **and the awesome** Adelaide.  
**

The lyrics are from The Paper Chase's _Said The Spider To The Fly _(Album: God Bless Your Black Heart). I hope you enjoy!

**Chimera Part Twenty Nine**

_Well, I want your head.  
I want your wicked parts.  
I want to wring out your evil thoughts.  
I want to eat out your bitter heart.  
I want your soul to sing six words harmony_

There is one place...

There was one place, Blue Malefici corrected himself silently, and resisted the urge to pick up the guitar that was propped up against his sofa. He loved the soft ripple of the strings, up and down the chords, dancing through the melodies as though someone pulled at his soul and drew beauty from it.

It made him feel whole.

Music and murder and manipulation and...

No. They were all. Nothing else. Play a song, play a person, play a game. Play and play and play, and always remember the difference between the three. A song could be caught. A person could be killed. But emotions could be neither tamed nor buried, and to play with them was to be burned by them.

He'd learned that slowly and painfully. Emotions...how often had he heard others think he had none, and seen it written on every nuance of their body language? How foolish of them. How untrue.

Accept who you are, and you will no longer fear it. No one will have the power to make you doubt; control the self, and all else will fall at your feet. There is only one enemy in the world, and it fills your mirror each dawn.

Blue had accepted what he was long ago, though others still refused to and it amused him to watch them struggle to find reasons for his existence. He destroyed their illusion of a safe world, of a place where good won, and evil was thrown back with one last defiant, futile scream.

He locked his hands around his knees, and leaned back on the squashy cushions.

There was one place though, that had stolen control from him. Just one. The first place. The last place.

She was a remnant of that.

He let his eyes survey her with what he knew was an aloof and insolent stare. Up, from the long dancer's legs covered by khaki hipsters, trim and muscled, to the belt slung about her hips that held a gleaming ebony knife on either side, and her thumbs hooked into the front, to the relaxed shoulders, and the graceful., swan-pale neck.

"Sandrine," Blue drawled, and gave her a feral, curving smile. "Dressed to kill?"

The flat ashy eyes were gravedust, the eyes of something long dead. Accept...or become this. "Yes," she said, and drew the blades.

X - X - X - X - X

Step into the house, calm and detached. No panic inside, only a kind of numb calm now that the madness was decided and agreed on. No sound, except for the faint, wicked whisper filling up the empty spaces inside her with the soft stirrings of his soul.

Her features flashed in the mirror in the hallway and she stopped, startled by something new and exotic that lay painted on there, stark as hands clasped to a screaming face. Chatoya took a deep breath, and looked again.

The same face surely; a very ordinary face, with a nose too long and lips too thin for her liking; no real beauty to the mishmash of features except perhaps for a jungle-wilderness to the eyes that seemed to have lost their freshness of three years ago. And the harsh black fall of hair that held her in mourning whatever she wore.

Same...but different. Not as innocent as it once was; harder to read. And part of her knew that the change was necessary, and perhaps part of her armour against Blue in this so very dangerous game she played, but part of her regretted the loss. Summer would never be quite as joyful, because she knew now that winter would be unforgiving, and always waiting.

And for a moment, she thought she saw another face beside her own, winter's face, with endless blue eyes that were boundless as the ocean, and shimmered like dawn's first breath. And the memory of his arms about her was so strong that she thought she felt pressure on her body-

She swatted at the mirror suddenly, as if that could brush away the illusion, and saw only herself.

Stupid, Chatoya told herself, and went into the living room.

"Where've you been?" was Lisa's greeting, and the made vampire was - there was no other word for it - snuggled up against one rather smug Vaje Chusson, wearing an equally complacent smile and looking somewhat...disarrayed. "Please, don't tell me you've been getting fresh with the blue-haired horror."

Goddess...

"We used to call him Chronic Sonic," Vaje murmured sweetly, and she couldn't help but start at the nickname.

That was what Jepar had called him. Coincidence?

Damn big one, she told herself, and frowned. But how would Jepar know that? He hadn't met any of their three godfathers, she was positive. No. Coincidence.

"No," she said, a little more sharply than she intended. "I was chatting to Jepar."

"Jubatus?" asked Vaje, and from the other side of the room, Lance looked up, eyes agleam. Shapeshifter and lamia both regarded her with a curious intensity. "He's been on the hit-list for years...ever since the Washington incident. Payment on his head is-"

"No," she said firmly. "You can scrap that contract right now."

"No flipping chance." Lance pointed a tanned finger at her, positively simmering. "Witch, d'you know how much he's worth?" He named a figure that Chatoya couldn't quite wrap her mind around. "If you can it-"

"Now," she said, and pulled at the power inside her. Just a little tug sent a halo of fire flickering across her fingers, and she made sure Lance noticed it. His eyes narrowed resentfully, but he let it go.

She ignored him blithely. After Blue's murderous tendencies, a morose vampire really wasn't much bother.

"Have you seen Ross?"

Lisa pursed her lips, a look of disapproval on her face. "He stomped in about ten minutes ago. He'd so obviously been in a fight. And if he's not higher than a kite, I'm the President."

"God, I hope not," Vaje said lazily, tugging at one of the beads in her hair. "I'd hate to have to supervise every time you eat a pretzel."

She turned a fond look on him. "And the fact I'll be a middle-aged man doesn't bother you?"

Gods, Chatoya thought, watching this cute and near-domestic scene, how long has it been since I had that kind of relationship? Absolutely sickening to everyone else, but somehow, utter heaven.

It was what she would never have even with her own soulmate. Oh, he might be seduction incarnate, and yes, she'd admit it, there would always be the thrill of uncertainty in any encounter with Blue - but she liked him only grudgingly, and rarely, and how on earth could she ever love him, or have this kind of careless delight in him?

I've locked myself into a relationship, she thought grimly, where both of us are only using the other to probe at their weak points. With someone who I can't hope understand, who I even fear.

I'm in deep. Drowning deep.

"He's upstairs," supplied Lance, getting to his feet and giving his legs a shake. "I'm going out to try and pick up some pretty girls and I'm taking the remote with me, so Pinky and Perky will have to fight over something else."

"Thanks," she said briefly, and put the depressing thought from her mind.

X - X - X - X - X

Iager spun sharply, but there was nothing there.

He thought he'd seen her, her moonstruck hair swinging like a sword, a spectre crouched in the corner of his vision. It had happened a dozen times today, as if his very longing called her into being; a flash of Ryar's astoundingly deep violet eyes, set in the face of some human girl, who when he blinked, had only ordinary grey irises. The touch of her lips, sweet pressure where his spine met his neck, but it had been imagination.

Almost alive...

Tomorrow. Tomorrow the moon would split asunder; half in light and half in shadow; the time when life and death lay side by side, each open to the other. Death to life, and life to death; that was how it must work. Her life would mean an untimely death, to balance the scales but Iager didn't care whose. What was one pathetic life against hers?

Here, in this place, every road was haunted by her. It was long changed, the mountains reshaped by the scraping of the wind and the hammering of the rain, but still he imagined her here as it had once been, her voice drifting on the breeze.

But it wasn't only Ryar who haunted him. He had thought he felt the others too; their powers were familiar to him as his own face in the mirror. Hael had been twisting ribbons of sleek black, flickering like the currents of air he had danced on. The air Drax, able to twine the winds about him, and call down storms to light his way in darkness, or destroy any who barred his path.

Bhari had been a jagged, dark power, like the ground shifting under his mental feet. Hard to hold, mighty beyond belief, though she never used half her power. Earth had been hers; every root in the earth could have been twisted to her means had she willed it, and mountains made to tumble and clatter.

He thought he'd felt them here, too, in that unique connection that had bound the four elements, but it was surely just wishful thinking. They were asleep, or far from here. He alone survived.

Until tomorrow.

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar Redfern drew a deep shaking breath, and regretted it as his arm muscles screamed. He was finding it hard to breathe, hung like this, and recognised with a deep sense of irony that this was exactly the fate he had rescued Blue from, all those years ago.

He hung there, between waking and sleep, or perhaps it was waking and death; he wasn't entirely sure. A foggy mist shadowed his eyes, and it was no longer a matter of where the pain was, but where it was sharpest. Wooden knives lay embedded in his sides, put in so clean that not a drop of blood had spilt until he had moved, and felt a strange warmth on his side. Now he dared not flinch.

Cougar Redfern had been in a lot of dangerous situations, but he didn't think he had ever been so alone in one.

And under it all, like water churning under ice, his rage. Not flaming and roiling, but cold. This was anger beyond logic or reason; it was almost a creature in itself, so powerful that nothing at all would stop it.

When he got free, he'd forget the last three years spent behaving.

He'd forget his goddamned soulmate (whodidn'twanthim) and forget any loyalty he'd ever had to that last shard of his family (whohadnevercared), and forget his friends (whohadforgottenhim).

Anger didn't need anyone.

Anger could pretend that nothing would ever hurt him again.

X - X - X - X - X

The stairs creaked under her feet, a wooden informer to Ross, who must surely have heard her coming. She nudged open the guest room door, calling her magic close to her skin, just in case.

"Don't knock, will you?" Ross said shortly, only a faint burr to his voice. He was sat on the bed just inside the door, left arm turned so the inside of his pale elbow faced upwards; he'd tied a black band about it - a symbol of mourning, she thought?

Then she saw the syringe, filled with a strange straw-coloured liquid, and the way his blood vessels stood out like a contour map, and understood.

"Not in my house," she told him flatly, and reached to snatch away the needle.

He knocked her hand away with a fast chopping movement that made her arm go numb. Chatoya staggered, and leaned her weight against the door until the shock had worn off. Goddess, but now the feeling returned in pinpoint, pulsing aches, it hurt more than Aspen hitting her had.

"I do what I want when I want."

The blue eyes met hers, and for the first time, they were lucid, horribly lucid and intelligent. Bitter too, drenched in loathing. But despite that, Chatoya couldn't help but notice how worn his face was when it wasn't relaxed in stupor, or contorted in drug-induced responses. Little lines yawned out from his eyes, and his cherub's mouth - laughter lines.

She drew herself up with, to her pride, not a flinch. Then she flicked that jungle-vine power at the bed, flipping the syringe into the air - and before Ross could grab it - out of the window. A delicate tinkling sound, and he was on his feet, mouth agape and stretching out hands that shook with rage to her.

"Why, you-"

A deep breath, her hands sketching complex motions that made her fingertips tingle icily, and the power filled her lungs to flow from her lips in the wash of green she blew over him. It held him still, making the air harder than granite. One of the less than legal spells she and Cern had come across.

"I didn't come here to argue over your addictions," announced Chatoya, suppressing the fear and disgust she couldn't help but feel at the sight of the needle. She examined the furious face before her. Really, he seemed such a child at times - a slight spitting flat-boned alley cat of a child, but all the same, somehow young. At others, oddly old. "I just want a spell."

"You're the witch. Witch bitch." Petulant words, his muscles bunching as he pushed at the enchantment futilely. "I'm just the drop-out vampire, remember? Go on, despise me. You think I care? If I was free, I'd just drink you dry, and I bet you'd taste so sweet - yeah...I'll bet Malefici and Martin have had their fangs in you a time or two. And other things too-"

Something thin and tight, like an elastic band at full stretch, snapped in her, and the backlash was swift and stinging - it had arced through her magic before she remembered to control it, and for a second the spell around him squeezed-

The crackle of flesh and bone giving under immense, mountain-strong pressure shocked her. Chatoya grabbed control of the spell, horrified at herself. Involuntarily or not, that was something like torture.

"I'm sorry," she stumbled out. "That wasn't intentional."

He was gasping, a rivulet of saliva sliding down his chin. But slowly, his expression closed off. "You think that's the first time I've been hurt? How dumb are you? Go on then, torture me. You think that'll make me help you, huh?"

No, she thought. I think maybe people have hurt you all your life. I think you could be used to it. If that was me - maybe I'd want to hurt them too.

He was healing already, but Chatoya closed her eyes and pushed some of her power back into the spell. Under the touch of her magical fingers, she felt bones knit.

"What - what are you doing?"

She didn't open her eyes. "Healing you."

There was silence, and from downstairs she heard raised voices and laughter. And here she was; a scene she would never have envisaged. Herself, binding the almighty Ross in enchantment.

"Why?" There was uncertainty in his voice.

"I told you," she said patiently, absently pushing little bits of power at him to dissolve the drugs still floating round his system; they were acid to her magical senses. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I take responsibility for my mistakes."

He cleared his throat and for the first time, the sharp confident whine was gone from his voice and what remained was a surprisingly pleasant baritone. "I...don't understand."

"Which part?"

"Why should that make you heal me?" She opened her eyes to see him staring at her with intense curiosity. "You don't like me."

Chatoya tried hard to keep her incredulity from her voice. How did these people get such strange views? "That doesn't make hurting you any better, and it doesn't mean I shouldn't heal you."

"You'd help me even though you don't like me?" His features were screwed up in confusion, and she could see him turning over this obviously new and odd concept. "You can - put things right?"

Goddess... "Of course you can!" she said exasperatedly. "What did you think happened? That no one ever tries again? Everything just stays broken?"

She saw the answer in his face. He truly did. Ross was watching her as if she were a particularly dangerous explosive until he abruptly said, "What spell did you want?"

"It's to do with dragons," she said more gently, and his eyes flickered. "Lance told me you know them all."

A smattering of pride restored some of his dignity. "I'm the best. Though I doubt that moron Stormshot meant it. He just wants to stay on your good side because he's scraping a good few percent off the top of a dozen shady deals he's running in Australasia."

Chatoya stored away the nugget of news, but it wasn't important now. This was. "Will you help me?"

He licked his lips, darting a sly look at her. "What do I get out of it?"

"What do you want?"

A hiss, as though it wasn't what he had expected. For the skip of a stone, his expression was open, vulnerable - and yearning for something. No - someone. She knew that feeling.

Then it closed off, and Chatoya knew he was lying as he drawled, "What do you think? Money."

"No, you don't." She was certain, and curiosity drove her to push him. Maybe it wasn't the best idea, but well - she was dating Blue Malefici, was _now_ a good time to start being rational? "Who is it?"

"Wh-hat?" He stepped back, shaking his head. The cloudy brown hair caught flickers of auburn in the light, and he was only a boy again. "It's no one!"

"Yes it is," she persisted, advancing on him. "Who?" Then a thought struck her. "Whoever it is - if I can, I'll help you. You can have all of Pursang's resources at your disposal."

His mask gave way again, and she saw dumb hope, replaced by - was it? - grief. But...surely not. She held her breath as his eyes crushed closed, and he said through gritted teeth: "No. You can't help."

Who on earth could have affected Ross like this? Chatoya had to wonder if the same someone had driven him to drugs, or had they come afterwards?

"How do you know if you don't try?" she suggested, feeling a strange urge to be gentle with him. She'd never have thought him fragile but...but what else was this?

His eyelids flung open. "Don't you think I have?" he shouted, and pain mingled with fury to make his eyes blaze metallic, shining cerulean. "I tried, and look what it made me!" He gestured to the window, to the tie still on his arm, to the marks fading there.

Half-afraid, half-awed, Chatoya couldn't just leave it now. Not when she'd learnt this much. "Then what do you want?"

His breath shuddered, loud on the air, and he just fell onto his knees, body bowing forward in near-anguish.

"I want her dead, I want her alive." Hands digging deep into his muddy, messy hair. "I want her here, and I want her as far away from me as possible." Knuckles white with tension were all she could see of his bowed head. "I want me, I want her, I don't want either of us, I want..."

His hands seemed to slip, and he wrenched his fingers over his face in a gesture of pure frustration, not seeming to notice the signet ring on his finger slicing scarlet down from his eye to his mouth, so the blood dewed like a tear.

"I just don't know," he said in that jolting, angry voice, and gave a convulsive shudder.

And he lifted his head up, to stare into her eyes, and to her shock, Chatoya found herself looking in a mirror. Oh yes, she recognised that strange, awful terror.

She knew what it was to feel yourself drowning under the sheer intensity of a link you neither wanted nor needed. Under something which had the ability to wash away you, and meld you into one being with two parts, to fit you together like two pieces of a jigsaw that simply didn't match.

She knew that terror, and she realised she understood Ross.

Hunkering down, feeling as though she was talking to a bear cub, Chatoya looked into the sullen face, frozen in arrogance but betrayed by his eyes. "You do," she told him gently. "You must. If you tell me what you want - I'll do it. Please."

Oh, the drugs were easy to understand when you had that to face. It was nothing to do with killing or not killing, but with the thought of a reality where you would never be happy.

His face froze and the silence stretched out like wire being drawn, thinner and sharper. Emotion grew in him, a decision being made by someone who had let chemicals take away all their decisions for who knew how long.

"Her," he whispered, and stroked her hand lightly, as though he saw someone else. The contact was vaguely creepy, but Chatoya didn't like to say so. "That was all I ever wanted."

"I'll do what I can," she promised.

X - X - X - X - X

It was dark by the time she headed over to Tali's house. When she was outside, she paused, feeling her body tense, her heart begin to beat faster. And she thought that her arms began to ache in long strips, as though phantom claws had torn them.

You're on the main streets, she told herself. The wolves won't come here. They won't ever come near you again. Things are different.

But curiously, she wished Blue was there, because at least then he was the only thing she would need to fear. Blue was familiar fear.

"Oh, come on," she muttered to herself. "Let's go."

She wondered what the walk back would be like; she would have dragon powers again. Would the dark become lit by those unholy fires? Would she feel different, inside - would the power overtake her, as it had been that first near-fatal time, or could she control it?

The shadows seemed to stalk her, and she wanted to pause under every streetlight that threw white light strongly onto the sidewalk and out into the air, moths fluttering around them. But she put her head down in the now-bracing wind and walked on quickly. This was her home. She wouldn't feel fear here.

Still, she was glad when Jepar opened the door with a dry comment on her red nose and flushed face, a little worry filching the laughter from his voice. He took her coat, and gestured her in.

"Are you sure about this?" was Alisha's first question as Chatoya got into the lounge. The dragon had never looked so nervous in all the time Chatoya had known her; she was flicking restlessly through the TV channels, though she wasn't watching the screen.

Chatoya nodded, and sat herself down. "Yeah," she said, though she wasn't. "Are you?"

The girl shuddered. "I just want to get rid of this feeling. I hate it."

Fiddling in the bag, she found the notepad where Ross had scrawled down the words and symbols needed. It was a surprisingly short spell, and really, for what it was, simplistic - Chatoya could understand now how her twin had been able to use this, the spell that had killed him.

Jepar was back in the room, and sat anxiously while she formed a circle to ward them from any backlash the enchantment might have, sketching it on the lounge floor - first with salt, then walking its curve with first a stick of incense, then with a candle, and finally with water. She gestured for Tali to get inside it, and then pushed her magic into it until a faint jade shimmer seemed to colour a hemisphere that rose six feet high, and double that across.

And of course, it had one other advantage. It split the world into two sections. One, with herself, Tali and the spell inside. The other - with her soulmate outside, completely unaware of what she was about to do.

A deep breath - the last moment to turn back - and Chatoya began to cast the spell. Arcane words flowed from her lips, words of men and women long dead who had sought power from those they had thrust into charmed sleep. She felt almost a link with them, knowing she drew on the same gods they had, on the same powers.

Tali sat very tense and still throughout, apart from a single quiver halfway through, when the power began to drain from her into Chatoya; it was as though she were an empty vessel, and at last the space were being filled with something to keep her from the emptiness, the loneliness, the fear.

And as the last vestiges trickled into her body, bringing strange raw heat, she thought a voice leapt from the darkling mass to whisper its lies, its words, its truths.

_You,_ the dragonfire promised as it swept into somewhere far less tangible that was perhaps her soul, _you will never need to fear again._

The words still fell from her lips, and her hands still drafted the symbols, but the voice was insidious, and awful. She was both drawn to it and repelled by it.

_I am the hunting scream of the first creature. I am the fire that can never be smothered, the thirst that can never be quenched. I am the call of the blood, the snarl of the thunder, the eye of the storm. I am everything you have feared and desired. I am the thought that cannot be spoken, the base, the corrupt - and the highest._

And her hands ended the spell, as she drew in a deep breath, struggling with the new power that roared in her like a gale across the sea. Goddess, she had forgotten what it was like...this was not how it had been. The power was no longer separate from her, but melding with her.

_I felled an empire. I made gods, and unmade men. I am in you, and with you, and part of you._

And it was like her own magic somehow; this was not the tearing magic of before that had battled with her every instant - no, she fought this because it seemed to sink into her own power, blending with it and merging into something more than the sum of its parts.

This was earth magic - power drawn from the element itself, and suddenly she saw a thousand things she could never have done before, open at her feet. If she had wanted, she could have ripped the floor into an abyss, and flung her friends into it. Or grown a mountain, right here, right now. She saw now that her own magic was a child from this parent; a potent mixture of earth and air, but still weak compared to this intoxicating force.

_I hunger._

"Chatoya?" The uncertain voice belonged to Alisha, who was tapping her shoulder anxiously. "Are you all right? You look really...strange."

She summoned a weak grin, and pushed down the magic. Yes, it was easy to do it, ridiculously easy because her own power was bound up in it. The darkness could only have hold over her if she listened to it. "Small change there then."

"Hey, that was my line!" chimed Jepar, though his eyes held concern. "You all right?"

She stood up, and broke the warding circle with a flick of power. Goddess, it was simple. It was more as though the dragonfire was a catalyst to her own powers. This was not the threat it had been before. This could not consume her unless she allowed it to.

And as the circle snapped, his thoughts flowed back into her head again. Delectable, taunting, dark. Blue, her haunting.

"Yeah," she answered as Jepar crossed the room in long strides to examine Tali carefully, sheltering her in his arms. "I actually am."

As she looked up at them, unaware of the uncanny lights that flickered in her eyes, she wondered why they didn't seem convinced.

"Sure?"

"Positive." Better than she had ever been. Different to how she had ever been. It was a light warmth beneath her skin, a fine layer of fire bubbling a little. Was this how Blue felt? All this power at her fingertips - and obedient to her.

But still, they made her sit down for a good hour and sip at orange juice, as if that would change anything. The tension had gone from Alisha. Just seeing that made her feel glad; she knew what it was to be haunted, and hunted by something (or someone, her mind murmured) you had no control over.

Finally, she escaped out into a night black as pitch. Half one, the clock had said, and Jepar had been half-asleep by the time she had left. Her fear welled up, ridiculously. Why should she be afraid? She had the power of a dragon in her.

Fear didn't obey logic though. Fear was its own master.

It was bitterly cold now, and her thoughts wandered from place to place, jumping anywhere but to the thoughts of lamplight-green eyes in the night, and the memory of claws. So much so, in fact, that when she got to her door, and tried the key in the lock, she realised it didn't fit.

This wasn't her door.

She blinked. How had she gotten here?

It swung open, and Blue Malefici was there, a shadow in the gloom. Even so, his eyes drizzled an electric blue glow that revealed his lazy smile, tipped with threat.

"What brings you here?" he purred, looking at her with his feline and secret amusement.

She didn't have an answer, so she made one up. "You," she said simply, and realised that it had been the right answer after all.

He stood aside, gesturing her in with what she was sure was mockery. "Then come into my lair."

Said the spider to the fly.

Chatoya lifted up her chin, and walked in. Not sure why she was here. Sure she would find out.

_Good things die all the time,  
God bless your heart, vengeance is mine.  
"Kiss me like you mean goodbye," said the spider to the fly.  
When all those times you thought that you were wrong, you were right._


	31. Chapter Thirty

Ack, I am sorry it has been so long since I last posted - things went haywire in my personal life, so I just took some time out for a couple of months to get my head round everything. But a huge thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter :o) You've all been wonderfully patient! My thanks to:

**GoddessNMB1, Mandy, Not signing in, Dianna, Martha, Jewel, Adelaide, Heavengirl221, Serena, Orange, On Faith, Nabby, Lazuli, Jello Ink, SA, Killashandra, Tjones, Kathryn, BabyLoca, Charmaine, Linnet Jo, Ash, Cotys Child, Kunama, Skylark, Anaita, **and last but not least, the wonderful **Xoulblade**

The lyrics are from Jewel's excellent _Grey Matter (_Album: This Way_)_ - thank you Aife!

I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty**

_You're amusing, you're a real cool show  
With your meat hooks and barbed wire carnival  
You got gold dust in your pocket  
You got moth holes in your soul  
From too many false teeth and greasy flashbulbs._

The glow from the lamp softened Blue Malefici's face, gentling the sharp angles of those Slavic, slicing cheekbones and heightening the impact of the luscious, mockingly curved mouth. But nothing could ever diminish the chill in his eyes, ageless as the comets coursing the sky, and every bit as cold.

She followed him into the living room, wishing she felt less like a lamb gambolling to the slaughter, and rather more like the powerful sorceress she was supposed to be. Clearly she hadn't woken him; a mug steamed on the table, and the sweet smell of hot chocolate made her mouth water. A book lay on the arm of the squashy grey sofa, and Chatoya couldn't resist the urge to pick the volume up – what did soulless killers regard as good literature?

"George R Martin," she murmured, inwardly a touch surprised. It was a series she herself had just read and to think that she and Blue had similar taste was disturbing. There was a bookmark in it - a donor card of all things - about two hundred and fifty pages in. "I didn't think this was your style."

A smile played around his mouth. "With all that violence? Witch of mine, it's practically an autobiography." He gestured to the sofa with mock-gallantry. "Please, make yourself comfortable and begin irritating me."

It seemed another realm almost, where only their words stirred the air, where the world was reduced to the little pool of light fending off the darkness where they sat, steam drifting lazily through the air.

"What do you want?" he asked, hands cupped about the mug as he sat cross-legged on the table, sapping the warmth into his skin. "It's unlike you to grace my doorstep, at least without spitting on it first."

She shrugged, unable to convey quite what she wanted. "I don't know."

"Not, I think, entirely true. Whatever else you may be, you know your own mind."

"But not yours," she countered, and realised the simple truth of it like the snap of a lock. Oh yes – it was what would get her every time. Curiosity.

"Ah," Blue murmured, and his eyebrows lifted a little as something new flashed on his face. "And where did this sudden urge to cuddle my inner child come from? Have the body snatchers invaded?"

"I...just don't understand you," she said truthfully. "I'm curious."

Bolts blazed across his irises, and she thought she felt their stinging touch, like static shocks. "Don't understand? Or don't accept?"

"Both." She lifted her chin, but found it hard to assume any kind of rigid pose on the sofa that was so comfortable it seemed to be trying to swallow her into the cushions.

"You understand more than you realise, sweet spellcaster."

"No. I've never understood how you can behave like you do. How can you just hurt people? Don't you feel anything for the people you kill?"

A corner of his mouth turned up, but it was not a gentle smile. It was the smile of a snake, suspended, waiting to strike. "Once – perhaps. Now? They're just another number. And you, Chatoya Irkil, despite your fine principles and morals, do they haunt you? The ones you killed?"

She gripped the arm of the sofa, suddenly finding the shadowy world too intense, too small. No escape now that she had vowed to run no longer from him. "Goddess, of course they do! If you had any comprehension of guilt, maybe you'd-"

"The first person I killed was the one I felt guilt for." His words, mesmerisingly dark, smothered her anger. "Though I didn't kill her at first."

Her breath caught, and Chatoya found herself enraptured by the perfect, smooth blankness of his face, belied by the intensity in his eyes.

Blue looked her up and down slowly, from her slender ankles to her cloak of jet-black hair. "She was like you. Naïve. Innocent."

A metallic scrape as he drew a weapon. She had to squint to see it was a knife, made of a black smooth wood that could only be ebony. He ran his fingers along the blade, and scarcely seemed to notice when his skin split beneath the edge, and crimson blood beaded to run down his hands.

"She was human," he continued, and the ring of gold about his eyes expanded, billowing out like clouds. "Very human, and very naïve. Her name was Sandrine Sarasen, and she used to live on the enclave.

"My brother took a shine to her, or at least to the flavour of her blood. He was a fool, as optimistic as she was and they were both so terribly shocked when I left to join Nightfire; the pair of them spent quite some time trying to stop me." His laugh was broken glass, vicious. "Tried to stop me going to the one place I belonged. They were so earnest about it. So...gung-ho."

"And you couldn't have that," she said with just the merest flick of derision.

A causal shrug. "I dealt with the situation," he acknowledged and she saw more thoughtfulness than cruelty to him.

"What happened to her?"

His eyes were a field of heaven, heavy with emotions that were too unsettling to identify, tugging at her with ancient desires and shadowy secrets. "She died, one way or another. What other end is there?"

Chatoya was unaware of the defiance that lit her like votive candles. "There's always another ending."

"Sometimes. But not always." Blue reached out and drew his bloodied fingers along the line of her jaw, and then down the path her jugular vein traced. "Tell me...what do you see in the mirror these days?"

X - X - X - X - X

Lance Stormshot didn't dream.

He was too practical for it; Pursang had stripped the romance from his soul long ago, when they'd sent him to kill his youngest brother.

He was just a baby in the cradle, and Lance had bent over him, breath caught and two lines prickling up his back, as though he were being watched. Which he was. He'd been twelve, and facing the last test; a lithe, tanned desert creature with a hard cast to his face and wrong, weakness, a quiver in his lip that he couldn't quell.

"Hey Robbie," he'd murmured under his breath, not meaning to. It had been three years since he'd seen his family, but he knew they'd not stopped looking for him. He'd even glimpsed Kes once, driving up to Brisbane to talk to the Elders there, as she had everywhere, pasting up posters of her lost brother.

He'd not even known about Robbie until Pursang had told him. Do it how you want, they said.

If he didn't, they'd kill him - and then kill Robbie anyway, to make the point. He didn't resent them for such pitiless practicality. To him, then, it seemed entirely sensible.

He drew out the thin roll of wire and unwrapped it, careful not to cut his fingers. Blood was evidence. But something – maybe a little sound he made, maybe the alien scent he would have had – twanged on Robbie's delicate baby-vampire senses.

He woke up. And a pair of palely glimmering blue eyes, full of odd lights that danced like the aurora borealis, were fixed on Lance with mute interest.

Lance froze. Don't, he begged silently. Just don't make any hassle for me, okay? We're blood, at least do me a favour and die quiet.

He'd realised what he'd become long after, when he recalled that thought. We're family, but the only value of family to me is someone who will die quietly while I kill them.

Robbie screwed up his small, squashed face and wailed.

And Lance did it, deft and a little annoyed and panicking at who it would wake. He lifted up the baby's head, and laid the wire beneath and over it, took an end in each hand. He crossed his hands – and pulled.

The door had burst open and in had lurched his mother, her streaked golden hair all tousled, her eyes heavy with sleep but her face full of pieces of himself. "Not now, baby," she was muttering sleepily. "C'mon, mummy needs her sleep-"

She saw Lance. She saw the wire. She saw it all.

And he was on her before she could scream, not even hesitating because it was survival, it was him or her.

He'd made the headlines. Vicious Killer Strikes Down Mother And Infant. The other assassins had rhapsodised over it, patted him on the back, wishing their last assignments had been as spectacular. Modern kids, they said. So bold.

He'd been one of twelve to survive his training that decade. But he was the one they all feared.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, he'd wondered if it was wrong. But he'd never dreamed about it. He'd never dreamed at all.

Until now.

X - X - X - X - X

"Myself."

His fingers slid along the curve of her shoulder, the light touch distracting. "A dreadful sight, to be sure, but rather vague. Yourself? The same self you saw a year ago? A month? A week?"

Chatoya found herself gazing at his feet, because his face was merciless, all the more cruel in its beauty. Beauty without gentleness was no beauty at all.

Was that a bloodstain? The carpet was darkened and marked by the patch, and Chatoya only hoped it wasn't. Already her heart had picked up, pecking at her ribcage like a woodpecker.

"No," she answered finally, dragging her stare up to him. "Things change."

"Things die." The stark words filled the silence with their terrible truth. "You are not who you were. Tell me, would the girl I met have sat here with me? Look me in the eye, Chatoya Irkil, and tell me that the world is still black and white. Tell me there is nothing on this earth that would make you a murderer. Tell me you would never tear someone apart."

She wanted to. She saw too clearly what he meant, what she had lost. She wanted back that time when the world was cut in two, when there were no pools of half-light in which right and wrong might blur. Where was that simple happiness, the belief in true love and chivalry, the faith that decisions were only right or only wrong?

But she knew that if someone had held up the life of her friends against the life of one stranger, no matter who that stranger was, she would have chosen their death. She would kill for the people she loved, she would kill to save herself, and maybe she would even kill if she believed the cause was just – and from there, perhaps it was but a step to saying she would kill whether it was righteous or not.

Blue killed for money; she for what she called reason and love – but in the end, it was the same. In some way, they were both paid.

"You know I can't," she said flatly, hating the words that leaked from her lips.

Blue nodded, his eyelashes hiding his emotions from her. "Then why is it you think you don't understand me? The world cares nothing for good or evil – why should I?"

"Because people care. How can I understand you? When you live...this way."

The room seemed to shrink, consumed by gloom. "Which would you like - the truth, or the easy answer?"

She looked him straight in the eyes and said with just the faintest touch of pity; "Don't you know?"

It seemed his eyes filled with a strange and secret flame, St Elmo's fire dropping into someone not entirely earthly. "It's easy for you to ask me how I can live this way, witch of mine. But – I ask you: how can you not?" His lips stayed parted on a soft sigh. "How can you stand your life being so – bland?"

She was startled by the depth of feeling in his voice; for perhaps the first time, the icy mists that shrouded him drew back and bared to her heat, and fire, and a deep intense passion.

"How can you understand what living is without knowing what death is?" he asked of her, moving forward to turn over her wrist, and scrape a fingernail over the sensitive skin, over the pushing of her pulse. "How can you understand what a gift it is? How can you know what it is to feel your blood singing in your veins unless you have felt it running over your hands and in your hair and warm on your skin? How can you live unless your every fibre is drenched in the lives of others?"

His eyes were beyond gold, into that shining pearl colour that shifted like liquid, but touched her like fire.

"But it's so ugly," she whispered, half-paralysed.

"Yes, it is. Sweet spellcaster, no one has ever claimed that death is pretty. It stinks, and it decays. But life – life is beautiful. And to take it away…" He drew her wrist to his lips, and she felt them move silkily against her skin, yet the words cut clean and quick into her. "I am alive."

"No." She wouldn't believe it. She couldn't. Let the world be cruel, but don't let that be true. "You're a monster. Don't talk to me about beauty! You wouldn't know beauty if it smacked you in the jaw!"

A miraculous smile spread over his mouth; she felt it, curving up against her wrist until the enamel smoothness of teeth lay there for a moment.

"Perhaps it already has," he murmured. "Beauty goes beyond appearance, Chatoya Irkil. The monster knows that most of all."

"The victim knows it most," she said shakily. "When you've seen hell, everything is beautiful. You don't have any comprehension of it, Blue. You live to hunt and hurt. That's all."

"That's not strictly accurate." His voice was mild. "While I admit I do tend towards the lucrative soul-shattering side of life, there is more than murder and money. Though you seem to have forgotten that. You spend all your time setting the world to rights, but some things cannot be righted – you live in the past. You're still fighting ghosts, and meanwhile the moments run through your hands like sand."

"Look at my life," snapped Chatoya, anger sawing at her. "Other people worry about what they wear tomorrow. I wonder if I'll be alive. The past is safer. I have nothing."

Damn it, why had she said that? She hadn't meant to – hadn't even known she thought it. Chatoya waited for him to laugh, and mock her. But his gaze remained steady on her, breathtaking, eerie.

This was not what she had expected – he was not what she had expected. With the games gone, the words spoken purely true, she found she knew Blue Malefici less than ever, but understand him more than before.

She couldn't keep the bemusement from her voice as she looked at her corrupt, empty soulmate and said, "Nothing but you. And I don't even know what you want."

"Isn't it obvious?" he said.

A tired laugh rocked her, and the dragon power stirred alarmingly inside her like water beginning to boil. "The only thing that's obvious is that you're a gift to pro-abortion campaigners. What is it you want from me?"

He looked right back, and in that moment, she noticed something she never had. Blue always looked directly at her. No shifting or sliding of glance; no traps made from words, no scuttling around the truth. And now she thought about it, she realised that alone of everyone she knew, Blue had never lied to her.

That I know of, she amended darkly.

"Not your acceptance," he answered. "Not your pity. Not your compassion. Not your understanding. Save those for the people who need them, Chatoya."

It was the first time he had used her name seriously, caressing the syllables until they should have belonged to someone more exotic and lovely than herself; the name shimmered on the senses when he uttered it, and made strange emotions scurry through her.

"Then what?"

He shrugged, almost absently and said, "Knowing is enough."

"Knowing what?" It was a fever, itching at her. This was new territory, and a little frightening in its intensity and its intimacy.

Soft, smeared blue in his eyes that was pure as the sky strained through stained glass. "I'm not sure. I only know that if you had died when we met, I would be different for it. I only know that you are very dangerous, Chatoya Irkil, dangerous because you're vulnerable." His brows drew together. "You're against everything my heart tells me. Your feelings control you, even though you know they will lead you onto the point of a knife, or into the path of a bullet. Yet...you are here."

"Yes." Here they were, so opposite and yet the same in one thing.

He half-smiled, though it was icy, and predatory.

"You fascinate me," Blue Malefici drawled, and the calm confession seemed to fit into her mind like hands interlocking, closing a circle.

Yes. He fascinated her.

She was here; who knew why they had been thrown together? She could never condone what he did or what he was – but perhaps she could know the truth of it. Know, but never accept. Understand, but never be governed by pity. The monster in light was no different from the monster in darkness – she had to remember that.

Love...but don't be blinded.

She dismissed it instantly. Love – ridiculous. Oh no, Blue wasn't so much Mills and Boon as Kills and Doom, and she would not love him. Not at all.

"I know."

And somehow, he was right. Knowing was enough.

X - X - X - X - X

The voice wound through Lancelot Stormshot's senses, thrilling and throbbing, a haunting serenade that seemed to almost float on the air, until he ached to hear it. He wasn't sure where he was at all, but it looked a little like the lake Chusson had pointed out to him on the way in.

A wide expanse of silvery water, gleaming like newly minted coins, was spread before his eyes, and mountains reared around it, their peaks almost touching heaven.

She was sat on an outcrop, her feet dangling in the water while her head was tipped up to the strange colour of the sky – not blue, or grey, or black, but a tornado of screaming reds and bursting oranges that roiled about one another, corpse colours that made Lance uneasy.

He approached carefully, knowing that yes, this was a dream, and yet aware that dreams were not pure fiction, were not harmless. The dreamwebs could be manipulated by things that were neither human nor living.

She was a siren, glorious in song but who knew what her silence might bring?

When that marvellous voice died away, he was able to concentrate on the woman. Her moonstruck hair hung still as a sheet and fanned across the gritty rock at the tips. In profile, her eyes were half-closed, her parted lips a deep, flushed rose in the smoky light.

Lance paused, hesitant to shatter her tranquillity. But that was stupid – why should he care?

He took a step forward. "Nice day."

She started, and before he could even move, had flung herself into the water with a neat clean splash, and his fascinated eyes saw her legs form into the forked tail of a dolphin before she vanished into the deeps.

"Hey," he shouted desperately. "Wait! Come back! Hell, lady, I don't bite!" But he was alone. "Least," he muttered darkly, "only on request."

He woke up, and turned over grumpily, his mind hazy and wanting only sleep. Lance was not a creature of the night, and anyone disturbing him was likely to be decapitated with whatever happened to be nearest; his instincts were so honed, he generally didn't even wake up. He'd lost three girlfriends that way, and broken a perfectly good alarm clock.

When he opened his eyes, the song wound itself about him, and he was beneath the volcano sky again. But he couldn't see the girl on the rock. Where was the sound coming from? He couldn't tell, and edged up to the rock to see if she was nearby.

Nothing. Lance sat himself down, and tried not to listen to the honeyed promises in her voice and did achieve some measure of success; he wasn't listening. His hormones were.

It died away, same as before.

"Who are you?"

Before he could blink, she was in front of him, hovering in the water with her strange pale purple skin, and a fresh, open face.

"Je-sus!" Lance leapt back, moving into a defensive crouch. No one had gotten the drop on him in years.

She looked puzzled; her eyes, the most stunning shade of deep violet, were wide. "You have a friend?"

"Well lady," he said unsteadily, "you might say everyone has a friend in him. But I was just...surprised. I'm alone. Why are you invading my dreams?"

Wariness – something wild about her called to him. As he grew used to staring at her face, Lance realised she wasn't beautiful; startling, yes, but if you took away the unusual skin, she would have been lost among the immaculate radiance of the Nightworld.

"Dreams?" she asked, perplexed. "What do you mean, dreams? This is my home. Why are you here?"

"Nice digs." Lance surveyed the bare landscape, pitted and cracked, with cynical eyes. "Must be hell to clean."

Her thin eyebrows pulled together. "You speak very strangely. And...you are different."

Lance grinned, beginning to feel more like himself, despite the fact he was only wearing the scruffy T-shirt and ragged tracksuit bottoms he slept in. "I'm unique, just like everyone else."

Her mouth quirked. "You're...odd."

"You said it." He eyed her, a mermaid in the water with the long hair clinging to her face. Her bones seemed almost birdlike in their delicacy, and he felt as if he could reach out and snap her in two with one swift motion. "This is home? Where is this?"

Blank stare. "Where I live. My...husband made it for me." Sadness flickered over her face like a butterfly's wing. "I...he...I am...waiting for him."

But she sounded puzzled.

"You got a name?" Lance inquired, holding out a callused hand. "Lancelot Stormshot. Please, no cracks about Camelot."

She only looked more confused as she raised herself out of the water with no apparent effort. "Camelot? I'm afraid I don't understand. I am Ryar ap Sangager."

Sangager? But he was some dragon king...god...way back. Lance remembered vaguely learning about him in his history lessons. But hey, this was a dream. He wouldn't be surprised if Blue Malefici tap-danced in wearing plate armour and waving a wand.

Her hand closed about his, and he gasped in pain as she nearly broke his fingers with a grip that was not so much vice-like as elephant-like.

"What?" She flinched back with a splash, shoulders draw up.

"You...uh..." Lance massaged his hand frantically. "Got a good grip. I've never seen a shapeshifter quite like you."

"A shapeshifter?" she laughed gently, and for the first time, he saw the flicker of authority in her gestures. "Oh, you must be new to this land. I'm a dragon. My father is the ruler here...or was..." Her voice died away, and the bewilderment appeared on her face. "I...it all seems muddled."

"Sky always like this?" He flicked his hand up to the sky, turbulent and turning. Change the subject, see if he could get any more out of her. He still couldn't tell if she was real or just his mind having a practical joke.

She looked up, and narrowed her eyes. "N-ooo...it's because...the war!" She clapped her hands to her face, somehow managing to stay half-out of the water. "I remember now. The witches – they turned on my father, and I was helping them. So violent...fires everywhere and my husband-"

She gave a tiny mew, staring right through him and despite the stifling atmosphere, Lance felt the temperature drop.

"He came here," she said in a broken whisper. "He came and he went away, but I stayed here. I heard him calling me but I couldn't answer. I was screaming for him, but I couldn't answer, I couldn't move because...oh, no..."

Lance was starting to think his subconscious was seriously warped. He'd always been fascinated by the Great War, but he'd not thought about it in years.

"I'm dead," she said, and gave a little cry. "I'm dead! And someone opened the way back, someone called me here...but I'm dead, I'm dead and he is not!"

Oyster-shell shards jumped in her horrified eyes, and she threw herself beneath the surface.

Lance woke with a groan, untangled himself from the huge, comfortable duvet and would have blamed the lobster for his irritating dreams, had he actually eaten any. Nestling into his pillow, he slept again, and didn't wake until morning.

X - X - X - X - X

Cougar Redfern was chilled, cold, empty; anger could only warm him so long before it died into ashes. He thought: do I really mean so little? Am I so terrible that they don't want to look for me?

Have they even noticed?

He hung his head, and the pain in his sides hummed through his body a little more loudly. It would have been so easy to give in, and he didn't know why he didn't. He could move a little, and the stakes would kill him but he didn't.

He supposed it was hope.

To live in darkness. To wait for people who might never arrive. To feel impossible love.

But if it was hope, why did it feel so much like despair?

X - X - X - X - X

"I should go," Chatoya said quietly, and stood, her face resolute. She wasn't sure what she felt; only that she did not see Blue in the same way. It had been easy to hate him when she thought they were opposite, when she thought she could never be like him.

It was harder now she saw pieces of what she could be in him.

You killed my twin, she thought, and swallowed hard. Deep inside, there still lay a hollow her family had filled that would be ever empty, ever aching. She had nothing of them bar her memories, and they blurred a little more as time swung by until she was horrified to find she could only picture them in flashes, in the hefty step of her father, the flare of her mother's floral skirt, the wink of Josh's eyes.

The Circle had taken their place in her life but not in her heart. They had their own space, each a sacred chamber where she stored the pieces of themselves that they gave her, like a child putting together petals to make a flower.

And Blue – she supposed he did too, though it was an icier, darker place, the side that slithered away from sunlight.

"Should, yes," he answered, and flashed a derisive smile that reminded her horribly of their first meetings when he had been so lofty and she so powerless. "But will you?"

Chatoya let the challenge flash in her eyes. "Why don't you tell me?"

He stood, in one supple movement, and so simply, put two fingers to her cheek and watched her. "What is it you want most of all, Chatoya Irkil?"

She sneered, deliberately pushing him away because this intensity frightened her. Chatoya knew how to handle mockery, and iciness, but intimacy...this was new, and it was dangerous. She had been wrong – stupid – to think this kind of game could be played with Blue.

"A Playstation," she said sharply.

"I doubt it."

She wanted to twist away, and fly out of the door like she would have done three years ago, but she couldn't be afraid of Blue. If she ran now, she would always run. The monster had stepped into the light, and she was reflected in the shine of the monster's eyes; somehow within the monster, and could not flee. This was the moment of reckoning.

Chatoya closed her eyes, and said, "Enlighten me."

"Peace," he told her, and drew back. And at once, she felt the change – the faintest buzz in her head of his thoughts that would become a cacophony, a deafening roar.

Peace. She hadn't known it for three years, though she tried to project it to others. She hadn't found it in beauty, or magick, or music. She hadn't found it in her friends. Why not find it in her enemy?

"And you're offering me that?"

"For now."

His words floated her mind like a dead ship sailing night waters. _You're still fighting ghosts, and meanwhile the moments run through your hands like sand._

Maybe now was all there could ever be. Flashing moments to be stolen and savoured because those seconds of happiness might be all that sustained her when darkness fell: and it would fall, it always fell.

She didn't turn to run.

"Now is enough," she said.

_I am drifting without anchor  
Through your ambiguous region  
A strange continent immune to all reason  
And I'm flattered by your grey matter._


	32. Chapter Thirty One

Aloha all :) Well, slightly more on-time update! Huge thanks and rains of chocolate to everyone who reviewed last time - you're totally fabulous. Next update may be a while as I head off to uni on Saturday (aaaargh!) for the first time. Thanks to:

**Dani, Kalika, Jewel, Zabella, Mandy, Adelaide E, Ellie 101, Orange, Dream Wind, Nabby, Izzy, Sweetie Pie, Lazuli, Tjones, Mop Head and her Daemon, Kunama, Dianna, Charmaine, Diomede, Shelly, Anaita, Ash, Charm, Queen Kat, GoddessNMB1, Heavengirl221, Camilla, Phire Phoenix **and the delectable **Dragonfire.**

Comments are much loved, adored, pored over, revered, cheered, adulated venerated, admired, desired, and generally worshipped. I'd love to hear what you think; criticism is welcomed with open arms and mind.

The lyrics come from Shawn Colvin's _New Thing Now _(Album: A Few Small Repairs). I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty One**

_This is your new thing now:  
It makes the whole world spin, it's at least as old as sin -  
But not quite.  
This is your new thing now:  
Oh, now you're turning grinning, and maybe no one's listening  
And you might lose it all, my darling –  
Yes, you might._

Chatoya was never sure who made that first, vital move. Afterwards, she argued it over in her mind until her head ached with the effort, but she was only aware that for one moment, she had been staring down those smudged azure eyes, both fighting and embracing this odd new understanding of Blue Malefici, and the next moment – something changed.

One of them, either of them, had moved forward and he was so close it should have unnerved her.

But it didn't.

His mouth quirked a little, and slow secret amusement lit his face. For a moment, Chatoya thought that maybe he was meant to be impassive and subtle, because on the glorious planes of his face, emotion was both devastating and astounding.

"I won't run," she had said softly. "Not anymore."

"Then what will you do?" enquired Blue, the words between them understated and hushed.

She breathed in and breathed out, felt her body moving in its inner, secret rhythms. Had she ever felt more alive, more afraid, more powerful?

These were the moments, poised and perfect. The charged instants, the decisions that came in intimacy, in conversation, in a thousand casual questions. Not life or death, not titanic struggles but the simple question in someone's eyes, the edge of a word, the electricity of a touch. These were the moments that would decide who she became, more than anything else. Not events – but people. She saw that now.

A thousand moments with Blue flashed with her mind – there had been so many, how had that happened? Standing in the rain, screaming at him. His arms about her as they stood in a rainbow-lit lake, the velvet-slow slide of his voice over her ears, the kisses and the furious fights, and the bee-stings of remembered emotions.

She had thought it was a simple battle; good or evil. Herself or Blue. Now she began to see that perhaps it was not the battle she thought it was.

"Stay," she said. "Stay and learn."

His eyelids dropped, and he seemed almost demure, almost innocent. "Good."

She was expecting him to kiss her then; her mouth tingled faintly, as if feeling phantom lips on hers. They were so close – so very close, in more than mere distance.

He didn't.

And worse still, she was disappointed.

X - X - X - X - X

Lisa Ochai didn't bother to turn round at the knock on her door. She was kneeling on the floor in front of her mirror, make up spread around her and a fluffy towel wrapped into a turban around her head. An early morning shower – shapeshifter free – had woken her up properly, and she was adding the finishing touches to her appearance, reluctantly admitting that it might have something to do with said absent shapeshifter.

"Come in," she yelled, and the door swung open to reveal a repulsively chirpy Jepar, who had probably been jogging, or doing something else that smacked of health.

"Morning," he hailed her, undeterred by the arsenal of beauty products. "Covering up the wrinkles again?"

Lisa stuck her tongue out at the mirror, and Jepar's reflection grinned. He had been running – he was glistening with sweat, and flashing his legs in shorts and sneakers. "Watch it, Jubatus, or I'll wax your fur while you're asleep."

"Yeah..." he said vaguely. "Lise, have you seen Cougar recently? I mean, it's been a couple of days since he's been stomping around, and well - he _really_ hasn't been himself lately."

She wiggled her drying toenails, shiny in gold. "He was pretty heartbroken over Toya."

"I know, but last time I saw him he was really...nasty." Jepar sounded uncomfortable, and he scuffed one sneaker on the carpet. "I mean, he's never exactly a shiny bundle of joy, but he was, well, I felt like I was talking to someone else."

She paused, and gave the matter some serious thought. No – she hadn't seen Cougar at all recently, not in any of the Circle's haunts. "We could leave it a little longer. He might just be sulking in a corner."

The emerald eyes were concerned. "With Blue around? I'd rather not. And uh – who the hell were all those guys in your kitchen? I could swear to God that the one trying to mainline sawdust was the spitting image of Ross, you know, that homicidal maniac my parents tried to have executed. And why did one of them tell me he was really regretting the fact he wasn't allowed to kill me...?"

The made vampire rolled her eyes. "They're the worst-kept secret I have ever seen. Toya's been messing about with assassins, though we're not supposed to know that. But it's not easy to keep up the pretence when one of them uses a knuckleduster to cut toast."

Jepar gaped at her. "Say what?"

"Assassins. I know because I rang Dark and did a little checking up. Let me put it this way, Jepar – that was Ross. The others – well, one is some hotshot Aussie that Dark told me confidentially is doing a little double-crossing business with him, and the other guy..." She paused, and felt herself go rather red. "Just some shapeshifter."

"Uh-huh," Jepar said sceptically, but he knew better than to ask. Lisa liked her private life private. "So what are they doing in your kitchen?"

Lisa grimaced. It was nice to finally share her suspicions with someone else. "In my kitchen? Trying to make muesli. In Ryars Valley - I don't know. Except that Dark told me all three of them work for Pursang, and he's been hearing rumours about some kind of shake-up."

"The same kind of shake-up as you get when you drop uranium?"

She half-grinned. "Probably. But they've not done any harm so far."

Jepar snorted, and perched himself on her inflatable armchair. "Yeah? I don't think they're here to preach harmony and goodwill among all races. What's Toya got to do with all this?"

Baffled, Lisa stared at her reflection, which has as few answers as she did. "I'm not sure. But I'll bet you anything Blue is involved, and believe it or not...Aspen Martin."

"Martin?" Jepar blinked. "What's he got to do with anything? He's dating Tam Slone, he can't be all bad."

What was going on with those two, Lisa had no idea. She couldn't see Aspen Martin, whom she'd always considered to be a younger, more vivacious Norman Bates, dating someone as wholesome as Tam. "You think? Dark tells me he's running Pursang."

A low whistle echoed in her room. "No kidding?"

"I'm not sure, myself," she admitted reluctantly. "See, yesterday, your name came up, and Lance – that's the Australian guy – told Toya there was a contract on your head."

His smile lit up, sunny and sweet. "How much am I worth?"

She gave him her best withering look. Sometimes Jepar was so Nightworld. "I don't know. But get this – Toya told him to can it. And he did."

"Toya's telling maniacs what to do?"

"Got it in one."

There was a long thoughtful silence between them. "You know about her and Malefici?" Jepar said finally, his face pensive. "One maniac I can pass off as coincidence, but the chances of two of them being her soulmate are pretty low."

Oh yes – Lisa had never been quite so shocked as at that moment when she opened the door, and found Blue Malefici in her best friend's room. If she had been more awake, it probably would have needed a stretcher to get her out.

"Unfortunately, I do know about her and Blue. She must be crazy."

Jepar rocked a hand back and forth. "I don't know – I mean, Toya knows him better than us. She's dealt with him pretty well so far. And she's on a...uh...more level playing field now."

There was something in his tone that was wary, and that worried Lisa. "Explain," she said.

He did.

There was a hallowed, priceless silence. For approximately three seconds.

She shrieked at him. He yelled back. She threw him off the inflatable chair and hurled it at him. He shredded it with his claws.

They both calmed down, and agreed to differ.

"So what are we going to do about all this?" her lanky shapeshifter friend said with a groan, slumped among the ruins of her chair. "Ask Toya?"

"No," she said firmly. "She obviously doesn't want us to know, so let her think we don't. Let's go and look for Cougar – and maybe we could try Aspen Martin. He's definitely a few guppies shy of an aquarium, but I hear since he's started seeing Tam, he's much less likely to murder you horribly if you look at him the wrong way."

There was a very relieved look on Jepar's face. "It's a plan."

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya Irkil was startled to find herself rather liking these awakenings.

It was, she thought drowsily, comforting to open her eyes to another person, even if that person – insofar as the term applied – was Blue Malefici. In his arms she found a tranquillity and warmth that she had almost forgotten. Fine, the only reason she felt safe was because she knew with iron certainty that there was nothing more dangerous than Blue for miles around, but even so...

Blue was watching her.

He was wide-awake, his eyes fixed upon her with what she could only describe as curiosity. The colour of a new dawn, unsullied and unbelievable.

"Something's changed," he murmured, and his gaze sharpened until she thought she felt the edge of it jagged on her soul. "Something in you."

Oh Goddess bright, the dragonfire – what if he felt it? How could she explain that away? The first tiny surges of panic nipped at her like fish surfacing to feed, and Chatoya had to fight not to let it overrun her.

"You're...not afraid of me," he said slowly and relief blossomed in her. "Not at all."

It was true, she realised, mute with surprise. She feared his actions, and she feared the consequences of her own – but not Blue himself. She had seen everything of what he was and though it was cold and razor-sharp and inhuman, it was nothing that could not be fought and faced.

Chatoya shrugged and half-sat up so she felt less at a disadvantage. She was looking down on him now, her hair messy around her face and the chill in the air making her shiver a little. She was still wearing what she had last night, bar her shoes, and for the first time in a while, luminous green eyes had not filled her dreams, trailing after her in the gloom.

"You can't hurt me," she pointed out logically, and saw something flicker quickly, rainfall-fast over his face. "I...think I know you. Only..."

She hesitated, unsure if this particular thought was a wise one to voice.

"Only?" he echoed, an elaborate gesture inviting her to continue.

"Only I don't understand why you're being so chivalrous," she said, her own voice dry. The thought of Blue being chivalrous was – laughable.

Blue shrugged. "I said I would lay nary a fang or a finger on you without your permission."

"Since when have you listened to anything I've said?"

His arctic smile sparkled, sending warnings of the changing seasons. Quite suddenly, there was something pitiless in his eyes, darkening them like a tsunami. "I pay extremely close attention to what you say. But you forget, Chatoya Irkil, I grew up on the same enclave as Bernie Martin. I've seen what he did and I've seen the rubble he left in his wake. I remember hearing Aspen crying at night – I remember how every adult there heard him too, and did nothing."

Bitterness was raw in his tone and Chatoya was held, rapt and horrified. Not an ounce of it showed on that smooth, flawless face, but it haunted – yes, haunted, that was the right word – his eyes.

"I left him and Therese there for three months when I found Nightfire, but I went back for them and when I found them, it as very nearly too late. I've had few friends, but they mattered to me. And he destroyed them. He made them powerless."

"And what about what you do?" she found the courage to say. "Doesn't that do the same to your victims?"

She thought he would be angry then, but instead, his voice evened out until the emotion was leached from it. "Perhaps. But if they ask me for death, I will grant it. I will give anyone a way out. I will not leave them as he did, hanging in hell and I refuse to use anyone the way he did." His mouth was curled, and his tones rich with contempt for this man who even the monster saw as monstrous. "So if you say no to me, witch of mine, and mean it, then I will listen."

A knot was rising in her stomach. "And if I don't say no?"

"That is another matter altogether."

And if what he had said was true, then that left Chatoya with some very interesting questions. How many times had she said no to Blue? Too many to count...but...how often had she meant it?

There could be no more lying to herself. Not now. Yes, there had always been this intense fascination with him, a desire to see beyond his face and hear beyond his words, and it had led her to confront him. She did the same now, but she knew that it was not hate that motivated her, but something entirely different.

She couldn't name that something; she didn't know if it had a name.

"Thank you," she murmured.

One eyebrow was hiked up into the mussed blue hair. "For...?"

"Letting me know."

"I had my reasons," he told her coolly. "Remember that."

"Thank you," she repeated, and this time, did not hesitate. It wasn't pity that prompted her – only perhaps, something which she had been fearing and waiting for. "And yes."

Blue stared at her, one delightful moment of unadulterated shock etched on him.

"Well," she justified with a little shrug. "We _are_ dating."

He didn't move, still apparently surprised. Surely he had to realise just how devastating he was, Chatoya thought, amused. In every respect.

Oh Goddess, she thought very slowly. Maybe I don't just like him.

That was an idea that would lead only to trouble and she shied from it, searching instead for some way to keep this strange new balance; where for once, she was not the one startled, disarrayed, unsure.

A streak of mischief prompted her to add, "Maybe we should catch a movie tonight."

X - X - X - X - X

Iager stared at the waters, moving in and moving out, beating like some giant heart. His own ached, and the echoes of her voice seemed to roll about his ears. Tonight, Ryar would live, and be his again.

The half-moon was already visible in the sky, chalky and pocked. It was his key to her. Yearning ate at him like acid, and if he closed his eyes there were only flashes of her, her touch, her eyes, her voice.

He had thought again that he had felt the remnants of the Four last night, but knew it was impossible. Maybe his craving for Ryar roused other phantoms too; he was only imagining that he could sense Bhari and Hael, earth and air. The war had ripped the Four apart, and destroyed their Fifth, Kheo – King, commander, killer and in the end, conquered.

The vibrancy of those days was long gone – the life he had now was not even a shadow of a shadow of the burning times.

The Nightworld spoke only of the wars. But they forgot what the dragons had given them; every shapeshifter on the planet was born of them, every witch drew their powers from the same fount, every vampire felt the same deep, wicked thirst. They forgot that the dragons had created the witches. They had gifted them spells, and given them shelter.

Not every king had been a tyrant, not every land war-stricken, but history was always written by the winners, and the winners had loathed the dragons.

They would not have loathed Ryar, he thought. She was no monster.

And she would see that he was no longer.

X - X - X - X - X

"Aspen?"

He didn't know the voice. He turned round, ready to hurt whoever it was, his teeth half-bared.

Lisa Ochai stood there, clutching her folders to her chest.

"Yeah?" he said, eyeing her.

She smiled, but that didn't put Aspen at his ease. She'd smiled last time too, right before she'd wiped the floor with him. Though maybe he shouldn't have made that crack about her ancestors. There was a minute possibility it had been in bad taste. "Tell me what's going on in Pursang."

He floundered. "I...what...dunno..."

She stepped closer, and the old, easy threat was back in her eyes. "Please." It was no request.

Glancing round furtively, Aspen lowered his voice. "How do you know?"

"A little bat told me." He would have given anything to know which particular bat, so he could find them and disembowel them...though he wasn't supposed to do that any more, and Tam might be upset. "Look, I need to know. I've got three assassins in my house - Ross, Lance and Vaje, if those names mean anything."

He stared at her determined face. Well – she was one of Chatoya's friends, wasn't she, and he'd heard that little lot looked after each other. And Chatoya needed looking after if she had those three hanging round. Vaje – he didn't care about the rules, and Lance, huh, he thought Aspen hadn't known about all his shady deals, and as for Ross...well, he'd seen what state _he_ was in.

"There's been a change," he hissed, his words so low and fast only preternatural hearing could have caught them. "I made a deal with Blue so I could get out of the business. Someone had to win a fair fight with me – and your witch girl did it. Pursang belongs to her now, I don't have anything to do with it."

Her eyes went saucer-wide.

"Look after her, okay," Aspen muttered. "I don't trust any of them. And _please_ - leave me out of it all."

Before she could ask him anything else about a life he was trying to leave behind, he scurried away. Her gloomy exhalation reached him, carried on a breath.

"Oh...hell."

Not quite, he thought. But close.

_This is your new thing now:  
And it feels so good to doubt you,  
I could almost live without you -  
But not quite_


	33. Chapter Thirty Two

Aloha again... Many, many devoted thanks to the sweethearts of you who commented last time round! Thanks to:

**Phire Phoenix, Adelaide, Mandy, Orange, Dream Wind, Izzy, Jenni, Mop Head and her Daemon, GoddessNMB1, Queen Kat, Queen Kat, Charmaine, Kunama, Diomede, Shelly, Goddess Cotys, Bone Baby, Dianna, Pandie, Any, Nabby, Fire Ice and Wind, Die Hard, Katherine, Sianna, Littlevoice, Lethal, Jangles, Chris, Killashandra, Megami-sama, Than, Jade, Oli, **and the wonderful **Zabella**. Thank you so much!

The lyrics are from Finch's _What It Is To Burn_, (Album: What It Is To Burn). I hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty Two**

_The sky's still fire  
But I am safe in here from the world outside.  
So tell me...  
What's the price to pay for glory?_

Lisa Ochai was left staring after Aspen, her trembling hands barely preventing her bundle of books and folders sleeting onto the floor. She didn't even notice Jepar until he caught her arm.

"Lise, problem! Listen," he said urgently. "Cougar wasn't in yesterday – no one I've asked has seen him since Saturday when Ben Skykes said he saw him wandering round town. And get this – there was some girl following him."

"Mwah?" was her blank reply.

"You okay?"

"Toya's running Pursang," she got out, and he nearly choked. "I _know_. It's mad! That's why there's all those assassins in our house, and that's why she's telling them what to do."

Jepar was visibly trying to regain his composure, and failing miserably. "No. Not our Toya."

"Yes. Our Toya. Aspen told me."

He heaved a sigh, accepting it with an ease she envied. "God, if there was ever a good moment to give her dragon powers, that was it."

"It was convenient, wasn't it?" she said. The corridors were emptying as people made their ways to lessons, and they had a little more space to talk. "But Jepar...doesn't it seem a little _too_ convenient, almost?"

He sucked at his lip thoughtfully. "Well – no. How is it convenient for anyone except her and maybe us, if Blue decides to do a bit of vaporising? It makes her stronger – and it's going to be a pain in the ass for anyone who tries to slice and dice her. Doesn't seem convenient to me."

"Yeah," she said slowly. "I guess."

"Anyway," the shapeshifter said, rather more hastily, "we've got a problem on the Cougar front. No one's seen him in two days, and this strange girl – might be someone new in town, or might just be someone Ben doesn't know. But it's kind of worrying."

"How about we do a search?" she suggested, tapping her forehead. Both of them were powerful enough telepaths, and the heated gold flush of Cougar's mind was unmistakable.

He nodded. "Let's go somewhere quieter. There's too many people here."

"I know just the place," she said.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya Irkil was not quite sure if the world around her was reality, or a waking dream. Logic told her that something like Blue Malefici could only be real; everything around him seemed to become mere background while he stood out, clear and sharp and brilliant. Yet somehow – she wasn't sure.

He was so much the same as he had been when she had met him; quick and icy-cold, ready to cross swords and argue easily.

And yet – he was different. Different in the way she herself was, unable to explain how knowing that he was the other half of her soul, the reflection of her sacred self, had changed the way that she acted and thought. She had changed, she knew. But Chatoya couldn't have said when it had happened, or how.

She tried to find answers, but there were none in his arms: none in his eyes. So she turned instead to the world around him, wondering if that might provide some insight.

His house was in many ways, empty. When she thought of her own home, full of junk, laced with photos and clothes and gadgets, it meant a thousand moments, a thousand people to her. But Blue's house had nothing; rudiments of furniture, a guitar and a few books, but nothing else.

She saw it in the bare cupboards, the meagre breakfast she tried to scrape together from the bizarre food Blue had in his house; something as basic as bread was missing, but his freezer was crammed with white-chocolate Magnums.

"Is there going to be a national Magnum crisis soon?" she demanded loudly, assuming he was in the living room.

Chatoya started as she felt the warmth of his breath on her ear. "You could call it my secret vice."

"Why do you need a secret vice?" she said, slamming shut the freezer. "Don't you have enough ordinary ones? Though of course, in terms of calories, ice-cream is much worse than murder and mutilation."

When she turned round, Blue was right in front of her, his hooded eyes the blue of a shark's skin. He was blank, impassive, formidable.

"Everyone needs their secrets," he said. "And what's your guilty secret, now that I no longer qualify?"

"I have none," she answered briskly, wanting to push past him, not daring to. This is ridiculous, a voice whispered. Use the dragon power, go on, show him, prove to him that he can't intimidate you anymore.

No...she thought uneasily. That's my guilty secret, and I don't want him to know it. Not yet.

Then he moved out of her way, and the crushing cage about her heart receded. As she was taking that half-step past, he caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms. Off-balance, Chatoya only gazed at that proud, alluring face and waited.

"You're mine now." The words were so, so quiet, the pounding of her heart so, so loud. He was hardly holding her, yet the lightest touch still felt like fire trailing over her skin. "You chose to be mine."

"No," she answered. "You're wrong."

His face didn't alter, but the darkness spilled into his eyes like oil smothering water. And Chatoya knew that her words had mattered. They had stung Blue Malefici in a way that fighting him and flinging insult after insult at him had not.

Where his hands lay, resting so lightly on the tops of her arms, heat grew, and grew until it burned her skin. Her head felt clogged with smoke, while the pain rose upwards until her heart in its tiny cage was screaming for release, for salvation, for mercy.

"I didn't choose to be yours," she gasped through it.

The pain intensified, and she couldn't speak. Chatoya had been hurt by him so often, she had thought herself immune. The dragonfire beat under her skin like insistent hands, demanding freedom, demanding that she unleash it and end the pain.

She could only see his eyes, black eyes ruled by the blackest heart. But Chatoya reached through that soulmate link blindly, stretching through the fathoms and inches between them.

_I chose you._

The blackness burst into golden flame, a phoenix rising from the ashes of something she hadn't even known she could destroy.

And slowly, the pain dimmed, almost vanishing except for a stinging throb. When he lifted his hands away, Chatoya risked a quick glance down at her skin. Oh, Goddess.

On both arms were a perfect set of burn marks in the shape of his hands, shiny pink skin that smarted like acid. What on earth had done that? His dragon power? His own power? And she saw the irony in it – she had been branded, yes, claimed as his.

She didn't know what to say. Her mind was still reeling; she had hurt him.

And strangest of all – she felt no triumph, no glee, only a terrible kind of sadness.

When she did gather the nerve to flick her eyes back up to his face it was familiar again, his eyes blue, cool, unmoved. Chatoya envied him his control.

He looked at her arms and remarked, "So I suppose that's what they mean by burning passion."

"No," she snapped, "that isn't what they mean at all."

All he did was raise an eyebrow, and smile in a slow, utterly charming way that made Chatoya flush. Even though she knew it was an act, that Blue could change faces like a die spinning, it sparked something in her, low in her ribcage and made it sizzle.

"Don't play with me," she said wearily.

He reached out, quite casually, as though it was his right – and she supposed, it was – to trail his fingertips over her cheek, sliding down to her chin. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that an essential part of a relationship?"

Fine. He wanted to twist words, why not? "Oh," she purred sweetly, unaware that the tone was one she had picked up from him, "I wouldn't say _that's_ the essential...part."

"No?" There was a mocking lilt to his voice, softening it into velvet that slid over her ears as easily as the arms that slid around her waist and pulled her close. "Sometimes you do so shock me."

This, no this, she didn't fear. The time drew out like cotton spinning, stretching thinner and thinner, as her hopes hung poised. She'd experienced so many of the bittersweet moments that fluttered her heart, charged with intimacy, these breath-catching instants.

And it seemed quite natural to tilt her head and meet his kiss, soft and sensuous. It was more than mere sensation, as if the empty corners of her very self could somehow be filled and fulfilled, as though molten silver were poured into her soul.

It felt like...

Belonging.

X - X - X - X - X

Lancelot Stormshot was sat at the kitchen table in this cosy house he was staying in, determinedly pouring hell-black coffee into a pint glass in the faint hope he could get some sense out of Ross, who was looking even worse than usual.

"What have you taken?" he asked for the third time, his sea-green eyes beginning to flicker like a squall was slinging across them.

"Nothing!" Ross protested, sounding innocent. As if.

"Give over. You must think I'm thick as two short planks."

He spread his hands wide, so Lance couldn't help but notice how they trembled. His face was taut with desperation. "Nothing!"

"Look at you," Lance continued wearily. Ross was even more of a mess than usual; his hair was a bird-nest of scruffy brown spikes and curls, there was a fading mark on his face, and something almost dead about his eyes. "You must have got hold of something expensive, though god knows how round here."

It was a shame, he reflected. The Australian could remember the days when Ross had been the smoothest guy you'd ever meet, a rising star in the firmament of the Furies.

"You're a mess," he said firmly. "Look, I need some help so just tell me what the hell you've taken and I'll sober you up."

"Are you deaf?" Ross demanded with more animation than he'd shown all morning. "I haven't taken anything. I am clean. Cold tree." He glared. "Why do you think I'm shaking like this?"

He paused to give it thought. "Fine – why are you in such a state then?"

Ross's unhealthy pallor reddened. "Keep your nose out, Stormshot."

Interesting. Lance leaned forward on his elbows and said mildly, "Look mate, either you tell me or I play irritating bastard all day until I wrangle the truth out of you."

"You've always played that."

"I'll sing," Lance threatened. He was tone-deaf, and his singing – with a vampire's powerful voice – could quite literally shatter glasses. "I'll sing Celine Dion." He cleared his throat pointedly.

"I've been tortured by Hunter Redfern," Ross pointed out with something close to humour. "Even your singing only comes second. Will you leave me alone if I tell you it's between me and the witch?"

Hmm. Ross was unusually rational, and he had spent some time with their lovely lady leader yesterday – and seemed to have come out of it with his spine intact, which was more than Lance could say. Maybe he was telling the truth. But what would make Ross drop his dollar-a-day habit? "Just spit it out, Ross."

The vampire ducked his head, and he mumbled something that Lance surely couldn't have heard right. "She's going to hit you with an old plate?"

"She's going to get me back my soulmate, you Australian idiot."

"You have a soulmate?"

Ross's eyes were painfully lucid. "Yes."

Lance was silent while his private universe realigned itself. This was information that the Nightworld would love to get its claws on.

"Are you going to tell me her name?"

The made vampire was looking more like the cold and careless being that had terrorised the Nightworld. "Never."

"Why d'you want to see her? Are you ending it – are you ending her?"

"Leave it, Stormshot," rapped out Ross so sharply that the air seemed to cleave under his voice.

It didn't faze Lance though – he'd spent his life ringed by people who would slide a knife into his back without a flicker in their face or their conscience. "Tell you what," he wheedled, pushing back his chair so he could swing his feet up onto the table, "you help me out, and I'll let it be."

"What do you want?" Ross asked guardedly.

She flashed into Lance's head, as clear as if she stood in front of him. Lady of the lake, lady of his dreams, lady who must surely be long dead or trapped in sleep if she was who or what he thought.

Lance blinked away her face, though banishing those lost eyes was hardest. "A little bit of history. You ever heard of someone called Ryar ap Sangager?"

Ross's face lit, ever eager to talk history, particularly dragon history. For reasons Lance couldn't quite fathom, Ross had a passion for the subject, and knew just about everything there was to know. He had been invaluable on the rare occasions where they could track him down and get some sense out of him. It was why Aspen had tolerated his idiosyncrasies.

"What do you want to know?"

Lance shrugged, covering the excitement – she was real – with a casual front. "Who was she?"

"Good question. She was the thirteenth – and youngest – daughter of Sangager, who was the penultimate dragon king prior to the Burning Times. As the last, she was unwanted – the other twelve daughters were more beautiful, smarter, more useful. Ryar was supposed to have been shy and retiring, known for nothing but her voice, which was famed throughout the five lands."

"The Madonna of ye olde days, is that what you're saying?" Lance inquired, fascinated both by the story and by the change in Ross. Suddenly he was animated and almost reverent, a sort of affection in his voice as he spoke of that ancient, firestorm world.

The look he received was blistering. "Don't make such revolting comparisons. Ryar ap Sangager was supposed to have sung a lament so exquisite that it won the heart of the Lord of the Dead, and he returned her brother to life."

Lance held up his hands in apology.

"_Madonna_," Ross sneered. "Anyway, eventually Sangager gave up his throne to Kheoussan Rastaban, who promptly lopped his head off, and the heads of all twenty six of Sangager's sons. He also spent a good deal of time cavorting with a dozen of the king's daughters – all bar one." His face was positively misty with nostalgia. "Ryar."

Lance decided now was not the moment to comment that she must have been a frigid chick.

"Kheo was supported heavily by those who wanted to wipe out the other races beginning to emerge, the witches and humans, and most of his energy went towards that. Others feared him, but did nothing because of the formidable trio that surrounded him; Bhari, who betrayed her own people so Kheo could devour their lands, Hael, who we know virtually nothing about, and Fireblade who we know all too much about."

"And Ryar?" he said.

"Ryar married Fireblade, for reasons we assume must have been political. He certainly had no love for her; he had enough affairs to make today's politicians look like vestal virgins. Shortly after, the Burning Times began in earnest as the witches fought back against Kheo."

Lance could understand now the sadness in her eyes, if it had truly been her. He couldn't understand how anyone could let themselves be used that way, but perhaps things had been different then.

"At first," Ross continued, "the war went the dragons' way. You see, Kheo had seized power because so many believed he was the most powerful dragon ever born. He, his trio and Ryar were the last of what were known as Drax; dragons who drew their power from the elements themselves. Fire, earth, air and water. Fireblade, Bhari, Hael...and Ryar. Together, they were incredibly powerful, and early on, Fireblade convinced – or coerced – Ryar into fighting with them. Kheo, however, was a fifth element – what we today call ether, or spirit. His powers were more intangible, but when combined with that of the Four...Armageddon."

He couldn't imagine the woman he had seen harming anyone. But Lance knew how people could be pushed and pulled, moved like marionettes.

"But then something no one expected – Ryar betrayed them." Ross's hushed voice held a curious note of triumph. "Imagine it – the four of them, betrayed by a dragon they had thought they could bully and terrify. She left the Four and Kheo and without her, their powers were diminished. It was enough for others to go with her - the ones who wanted Kheo gone, who wanted peace. The war raged for months until the sky was smeared with smoke as dragon fought dragon. They died in their thousands, sister fighting brother, wife fighting husband, so many, they say, that the living walked upon a carpet of the dead."

Lance had to hide a shudder. The pictures were all too vivid in his mind, he who had seen so many untimely and ugly deaths.

"The witches began to win at last. As the war came to a close, they told Ryar to flee as she was the figurehead of the rebellion – she was the one they wanted dead. The few accounts that remain tell us Hael, Bhari and Kheo all perished, though a mountain had to collapse on Kheo before he would die. Only Firebalde and Ryar remained of them all, Ryar fleeing and Fireblade hunting her." Ross stopped.

"And?" Lance said urgently. "What happened?"

An infuriating little smile. "The scholars don't know. I've been trying to find out for centuries – I've read dozens of accounts and each had a different ending. Some say Ryar died in the war and that the witches lied to keep the remaining dragons from taking flight. Some say Fireblade died, some that he caught her and she charmed him with a song, others that she was murdered by him...one particularly fanciful one suggested that whenever you see a shooting star, that is the two of them running across the skies."

Lance groaned inwardly. It was like reading a murder-mystery to discover that the last chapter had been ripped out. "So no one knows?"

Ross's smile twisted, bitterness in its slant. "_I_ know."

"You? How?"

His laugh was harsh and flat. "You want to know about my soulmate, Stormshot? Fine. My soulmate chose a dragon over me. And not just any dragon. Fireblade."

He whistled. "You're kidding."

"No. You think I can't recognise the guy after studying him in scrolls and paintings for half a millennia?" There was a fury tightly but barely leashed in Ross's chopped words. "He took her from me. Fireblade's still alive, all right – but no one's seen hide or hair of Ryar."

"Fascinating," a dry voice remarked, and both of them glanced up to see Vaje Chusson sitting on the sideboard. "If you ever have kids, Ross, and god help us all if you do, they're going to get great bedtime stories."

"How long have you been there?" Ross demanded, his pleasant, scholarly manner vanishing.

The coyote shapeshifter shrugged. "Since the wisecrack about Madonna. And I think I may have something to add to your epic."

Lance frowned. "Explain."

Vaje pointed a finger at him. "You should have remembered this, Lance – you thought the report was bloody funny when I read it to you. See," he clarified, "Nightfire has an informant in here, and a friend of mine gave me a copy of a report they'd had."

Lance did vaguely remember that, but the content of the report escaped him, except that he'd laughed so hard that his ribs had ached.

"Turned out there'd been these two dragons hassling an human girl here. One was an old flame who wanted something to keep him warm at night, and I'm not talking a teddy bear. The other was an ancient dragon, a very dangerous lady who wanted to be human. Well, the trade took place – the human girl is now a dragon, the old flame went nuts and disappeared – and the dragon died. Irony of the whole situation was that it was something Aspen and Blue had set up for kicks. They found the girl, and let the dragons know."

"And? I remember it now, but I don't see what it has to do with us."

Vaje shook his head sadly. "You're getting senile, Lance. Don't you remember the name of the dragons?"

"David...something," Lance said. "And...Celine?"

"Well, she was posing as Celeste," supplied Vaje. "But her real name was Bhari."

And Lance understood. Two. Two out of four...and if two had survived...

Could four?

X - X - X - X - X

Jepar grimaced as he lowered his bare feet into the water. He and Lisa sat on one of the lake's small jetties, shoes beside them and the rough, splintery wood under their hands.

"You sure about this?" he asked dryly as his feet went first shriekingly cold, and then settled into numbness. "I've never heard of it."

"Neither had I," Lisa said. "It was something I noticed when we were windsurfing. It hardly takes any effort to talk telepathically here. It's – weird. But I have heard that the lake's supposed to be magical."

"I saw some amazing things when I cane here for a midnight dip once," Jepar admitted, recalling the strange, beautiful lights he'd seen gliding under the water.

She glanced at him sideways, amused. "Alone?"

"Uh...not exactly." He flushed a little. "Please don't ask."

She relented with a laugh. "Okay, I probably don't want to know. So where do we start searching?"

"From here?" he suggested. "It's pretty much the middle of the valley anyway and we can work out in a spiral. If Cougar's anywhere, we should find him."

She nodded, and both of them eased into the icy waters. Gasping, Jepar envied Lisa her resistance to the cold.

They linked hands, and Jepar relaxed at the comfortable touch of Lisa's mind, warm as polished wood in sunlight.

His mind spun out like an eagle spiralling on the wind, looping around until Ryars Valley with its candle-flames of human minds and the beacons of preternatural personalities became a giant Catherine wheel, whirling with life and light.

Nothing...and nothing...and nothing...and-

There.

X - X - X - X - X

Belonging.

Such a simple word, but it rang through her like the ripple of harp strings, soft and tremulous.

Chatoya drew back and tried to shake that feeling of rightness, which should have been so terrible but seemed so tempting. She was unaware of how vulnerable her face seemed; all the hardness of the last three years had been erased by one moment.

I am in trouble, she thought. Serious, serious trouble.

Neither of them said a word, and the silence was eloquent as a soliloquy. In the hush, she felt static, changeless, endless. Every moment where she had faced him came to life, every sensation prickling along her skin like the air before a thunderstorm. They blurred, each experience merging into this moment, this now.

Her heart still beat, and her breath still rose and fell like the tide, but somehow, somewhere, her world had paused on its axis to hang suspended, poised in this one perfect moment.

And in that moment, she knew.

Oh god and goddess and whatever lay beyond her perfect moment in an imperfect world, she knew.

And it hurt.

"I should go," she said, stuttering slightly, not even daring to voice what that knowledge was, and just what it meant.

"When have you ever done what you should?" enquired Blue, the words slick and dark as cream liqueur. "But if you feel the need to flee, please, be my guest."

Chatoya stared at the treacherous, striking face that she knew like the pages of a favourite book, though Blue was no easy read. She knew he was right; her instinct was escape, to run like a hunted rabbit. But not because she was afraid.

Not anymore.

"Have you ever run from anything?" she asked, accusatory, angry that Blue would act as judge and jury. "Do you even understand what it means?"

His eyes flashed an extraordinary iridescent colour, gleaming bright as dragonfly wings. "Who knows what the prey feels better than the hunter?"

"Is that all I am? Prey?"

"No. No, not at all," he answered, his voice a silky whisper. She shivered when he brushed her burns with his fingertips. "But consider this, witch of mine...the prey runs from the hunter, but the hunter is running just as fast. Sometimes we lie and tell ourselves that we hunt for the kill, or we hunt for survival, or we hunt for pleasure, but in truth we hunt because we do not want to be hunted."

"By what?" she said, astonished.

"By you," he said quite simply.

"Blue?"

Chatoya was uncertain again, standing on shifting ground. His face could have been marble, so motionless and smooth was it. Only the brilliance of his eyes gave away the illusion.

"Like you said," he continued as if she hadn't uttered a word. "You should go."

My enemy, she thought, puzzled and watching him in the faint and futile hope his expression would change and yield her some answer. My enemy, my soulmate, my mirror.

My...

"I should go," she agreed, and wondered what it was she hadn't dared to think. "And," she added with a nonchalance that she didn't feel at all, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Will you?" was the cool answer. "And why would that be?"

Chatoya forced a smile, and hoped it looked better than it felt. "Well, we are going to the movies."

"I hate to spoil your suburban dream, but there's no cinema."

"There's a video-rental store though, and if I'm not mistaken, there's a widescreen TV in the middle of your living room." She paused, then threw in a little bit of Cougar's crow-black humour. "One and one is...?"

Blue's eyes swept her up, and down, unhurried and immoral and irreverent. "An excellent opportunity for entertainment."

She ignored that. "I tell you what – I'll even bring popcorn." And with a cheeky wave of her fingers, Chatoya breezed out, only letting her composure crumple when she was sure she was out of sight.

Why had she done that? Indulging in cute meetings with Blue Malefici wasn't at all what she had intended. He wasn't the kind of person she would even want a video-date with. Chatoya was almost positive he didn't do snuggling, or indulge in popcorn fights and what would they even watch? So I Married An Axe Murderer? The Lost Boys?

So why on earth had she done it? She wasn't sure, not at all-

But that was a lie.

Deep in her bones, in the core of what she was, in that dark and arcane segment of her soul, she knew.

And it hurt.

X - X - X - X - X

Heart of my heart...

He had felt it again, this time so near he paused and reached out instinctively, as if they could answer. Hael and Bhari, air and earth to his fire. The sensation had been sharp this time, sharp as a blade whetted for war.

But there was nothing, not even a whisper and it made a hollow deep inside him ring.

At first, it had been only about power; the other Drax were a catalyst. Fire could melt earth into lava, and air could whip water into a typhoon, and between them they had taken the clay of the earth and moulded it to their liking.

But they had been more than just that. They were almost like soulmates, finishing each other's sentences, knowing what the others felt without needing to be told. They had been friends, rivals, unique among their people, and in the end – family.

He missed them, missed them like the solid ground under his feet, the air that filled his lungs, the sweet surrender of rain. Hael, Bhari, and most of all, Ryar.

Oh, he had betrayed her a thousand times with other women, but in the end she had proved the stronger, she had wounded him with her infidelity to her very people.

At the end of the war, he had chased her through the shattered land, over earth turned black and smooth as glass. He'd ploughed through water fetid and stinking, tainted with blood and bodies, through lands ankle deep in ash, through forests of charred leafless trees and stumps. And at the very end, when his hands had choked her life from her, she had surrendered to him once again.

She could have changed shape beneath his hands, or swept him away in a torrent, or any of a thousand other things, but she had not. He had taken her breath, and silenced that glorious voice. Though it seemed he had won, somehow he knew he had lost, and was lost.

When he went back to the dragonlands, he began to taste the bitterness of his victory.

Everywhere lay in ruin. He trod in the bleached bones of his own, passed bodies that even the carrion creatures would not touch. An entire village, poisoned by a spell of his own making. He went by the swollen corpse of a girl he'd dallied with, a girl he had killed without a second thought because her brother had declared for the witches. He passed survivors too, dragons with their horns cruelly mutilated or gone – little more than humans, unable now to heal their horrific wounds.

He passed the collapsed mountain that had become Kheo's cairn and however long and loud he called, hoping beyond hope, there was no reply.

Fireblade trod in a world changed. The clouds of dust that billowed about his feet were pieces of his own people, the roads he walked on coloured in their blood.

Eventually, he came to the witches, safe in their communities. Many of them had died, but so many more had lived. Ryar and her traitors had protected them where they could, but how had they been repaid?

In the first village, he saw a dragon hanging, his horns on the floor beneath him. The witches there hunted Fireblade, and as he ran through, shocked at their fearlessness, he saw other bodies of his people, men and women he had known. There was silver-haired Drax, named in the hope he might prove to be one of the mighty, Drax whom Fireblade had long suspected of having an affair with some witch. Aline, god, Aline who had been Fireblade's first and who had been one of the first to join Ryar.

So many, so many and Fireblade was consumed by the need for vengeance.

He devastated that village, and to his immense shock, nearly died in the process. He had never realised that the witches were powerful in their own right, had never known how much he leaned on the other Drax.

After that, he fled, far from the land that had spawned him, over the great grey wash of the oceans and into new realms, untouched by the war, his for the taking.

And he took.

He was a god to them, a being of fire and ferocity that roared like a storm. They sat him on a throne and laid tribute at his clawed feet and brought their children to him for his appetite. He gorged, and for a time at least, he could forget the place he had come from.

Nightfire was born.

As the years passed, and Fireblade grew in strength and stature, at last the moment came to return. His temple went with him, so many dying on the perilous journey back but enough – enough! – remaining for him to stride across the land destroying those who had betrayed his people.

Finally, called, he returned to Ryar's valley, to erect his temple and call new followers to mingle with the old and let their blood run red with theirs. But through it all, adored, fervently worshipped, fanatically believed in, he was empty. Scarred as the ground he had ruined in his petty war.

He understood why Ryar had died.

And now, he knew why she must live.

He went about it quite methodically, quite calmly. He knew what was needed and he would deny her nothing. So he had broken into the house without any scruples, knocked the occupants out, and stolen a good, sharp knife from their kitchen.

He knelt in front of the mirror, and stared at the face that was his own, not a mere mask he pulled over himself. It was the last time he would see it as it was now.

There were lines on it. Iager had never known a dragon who had aged, but the war had left its own wounds on him. Lines at his mouth, and the corners of the eyes that had never burned so bright as they had when the war was a game they played for glory and killing joy, before the betrayal.

He took a deep breath, and raised the knife. This would hurt. A lot.

Ryar.

He brought it down on his forehead, on the outermost horn-

An instant of blissful numbness at the impact and then-

He screamed aloud at the pain, hot, crushing and hungry. Blood streamed into his eyes, and over his hands that pressed at the wound mindlessly.

He'd never known anything like it. Blood seeped through his fingers and power slid away from him like the strings of his heart being snipped one by one.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, moaning. As time passed he began to realise that his body was slowly healing itself, even over this wound. It almost made him laugh, but the sound stuck in his throat.

When he had scraped away the cracked and congealed blood, he nearly began to laugh again at the sight in the mirror. His face was fearsome, streaked with tears and blood and sweat in shades of crimson, brown, black, his clothes the same mess. Only his smile was white and clean as before, and Iager found he was grinning so hard he couldn't stop. This was the bit of the spell he had feared most.

But now - four horns left, darkly daubed, and a gap. A gap somewhere deeper inside him too, but he had done it.

He scrabbled on the floor for the horn, and rolled it in his fingers. He'd never really believed his power stemmed from them, but now he knew it to be true. Such a small thing for so much destruction.

For you, he thought to her. All for you.

X - X - X - X - X

It seemed as though he'd spent his life here, with nothing but the pain and the silence for company. His constant companions, almost friends, keeping his world from slipping into a twilight nexus.

Cougar Redfern had lost all track of time. The darkness was total, and he felt as though he could have been here forever, or merely a second, or both. He was stagnant, frozen here, and his only proof that the moments moved, that the sun still scythed across the sky, was the push and pull of his own breath.

He was utterly drained of energy, a relentless ache throughout his limbs. His only link with the world outside was Sandrine, but she had been gone long minutes, hours, months, years, eternity. She had been gone so long that her memory was rusting in his mind, corroding into half-true sounds and sights.

He'd always thought that you could grow used to pain, that you could live with it until it was no longer a distraction, but it wasn't so. He hurt, if anything, more than he had when he woke to find himself strung up from this wall.

Gritting his teeth didn't help. Screaming didn't, and eventually his voice was worn away to silence. Crying didn't. Wishing didn't.

He almost wanted to give up, but he knew that wasn't his way. A Redfern didn't surrender.

So he lay in the dark, and the silence, and the anguish, and lived. And then, invading his barren bleak world like the first ray of light-

_Cougar?_

X - X - X - X - X

"Interesting," Ross said softly. "So whoever your human girl is – she has Bhari's powers. There are two Drax walking the earth. Maybe more."

"Well, we might be able to find one of them easily," Vaje said dryly.

"Oh?" Sheet-ice in Ross's voice. "Dragon expert, are you?"

A roll of the bronze eyes, and Vaje gestured to the room, or maybe the world at large. "Ryars Valley," he said simply. "Ryar's."

Something clicked in Lance's mind, something that told him Vaje was right – that somehow, the story ended here. That the story of the Four ended here too. Bhari – or at least her powers – were here.

Ryar in his dreams...in the lake here. Telling him in that soft, tragic voice that she was dead – that her husband had come and gone, while she stayed. So what if – what if Fireblade was alive? If he had killed Ryar somehow, and then left her here.

And worse – Blue Malefici was here. Blue Malefici had a long-vested interest in this place, this place where dragons were. One Drax – Lance could pass that off as luck. Two – and Blue Malefici having a hand in it – made him uneasy. Very uneasy.

"Lance?" Vaje said uncertainly, crinkling his nose. "You've got that moronic, open-mouthed look that means you're thinking hard."

The Australian looked at the guy who he supposed was his closest friend. "Knock me out."

"What?"

He nodded firmly. "Knock me out – just do it, I'll explain later. It's important! And...and..." Lance paused. "Ring Aspen and find out if Malefici knows the story, about Ryar and the Four."

Vaje slid off the surface, his eyes brightening a little. "You onto something?"

"I don't know," he answered. "But I think I need to. Ross...can you find out what happened to Fireblade?"

Ross's face was clear, back to its old, malicious intensity – he was practically perky, which meant trouble for anyone he ran into. Lance was almost glad to see the change. Odd – he hadn't known you could miss a vicious sociopath like Ross.

"No," he said, and Lance's hopes sank. "But I can find out what happened to Iager, which is the name the-" The brief and unpleasant sentence assured Lance that Ross was feeling more like himself. "-is going under now."

"Great," Lance said briefly, and took his feet off the table in case he fell over when Vaje knocked him for six; he'd been mentally slammed by the shapeshifter before, and he'd woken up with Thor's own headache. "Okay, hit me."

His vision snapped out as if an avalanche had smothered it.

X - X - X - X - X

_Cougar?_ Jepar said again, having to stretch like a prisoner on the rack to even keep the tenuous contact.

This was not the Cougar he knew, his snarling, spitting best friend who had been born in the shadows and burned like a furious inferno. He knew Cougar's mind from all the times they'd casually chatted – saved on phone bills – and it was fierce, full of life and always blazing. Always.

But the mind he'd caught hold of had been whittled away into a faint, smoky husk. There was nothing of Cougar's energy and anger left, nothing at all.

He opened his eyes to see Lisa's face as aghast as his own.

_Are you all right?_ asked Jepar gently, even though he knew the answer.

Like embers surging on a fire, a weak thought came back. _Peachy – I do so love al fresco bondage._

The shapeshifter grinned despite his concern. Maybe not as bad as he'd thought then. If Cougar was up to being pithy, he was hanging on in there. _Any idea where you are?_

_It's dark, it's cold, it's stony. I'm thinking Caribbean beach._

_Cougar-_

_Of course I don't know! If I knew, d'you think I'd be-_

His voice faded out, but before it did, desperate pain and exhaustion glanced across Jepar like a car sideswiping him.

Suddenly afraid, Jepar flung out his thoughts as though he flung a grapnel, trying to catch hold of Cougar. Lisa was a solid, reassuring presence, channelling energy his way, anchoring him, as though a thin, fraying cobweb tied her and Cougar, leaving Jepar free to drift along it.

_What the hell happened to you?_ he asked anxiously.

A dry, bitter laugh that was unnerving. _Enlightenment._

_Enlightenment?_

Anger flared like a lightning ball, almost painful to Jepar. There was something buried deep in those ashes, ready to stir and burn. This wasn't Cougar's easy, casual anger that burned itself out into laughter or moodiness. This was something far more dangerous, a constant churning mass.

_Just leave it. _

This wasn't getting them anywhere. _Do you know where you are? We know you're underground somewhere, somewhere near the lake, but that's about it. Take it from me, this place is riddled with tunnels._

_Yeah, she left me a fragging map and a torch. I'm just waiting for her to come back with the boltcutters. How the hell should I know? I'm a prisoner, I'm nailed to a wall, I've got two stakes in my sides, I'm getting really pretty hungry, and you're asking me asinine questions!_

Trying to concentrate on doing two things at once, Jepar staggered out of the lake, nearly falling over as he tried to make his numb feet work. _Listen, keep talking to Lisa. I'm going into the tunnels – she'll know where you are, she'll know where I am and hopefully we'll find you that way. Just sit tight._

The minute he had said that, Jepar realised it was fairly redundant advice for someone staked to a wall.

_What, can't I recline on my chaise-longue?_ was the fading thought he caught from Cougar. There was definitely something not right with him, and one glance at Lisa's face confirmed it.

"Can you find out who shanghaied him?" Jepar said aloud, grimacing as the feeling returned in tingling, smarting waves to his feet. He slapped at them to try and get the circulation back.

A glance up the sky told him they'd been looking for a good few hours already; the winter sun was starting to set and the first faint grin of a half-moon hung above them.

He began to jog round to the other side of the lake, the side that backed onto the mountains and onto the labyrinthine tunnels.

He didn't stop to consider anyone else might be in them.

_Like a bad star, I'm falling  
Faster down to her  
She's the only one who knows  
What it is to burn._


	34. Chapter Thirty Three

Evening all! Well, less of a long wait for this one ;o) Hope you're all well! Hugs n' thanks to these lovely people:

**rina, Girltype, Jenni, Goddess Cotys, Adelaide, Xoulblade, Jade, Lauren, Dream Wind, Phire Phoenix, Dolphin, Daugain Hecale, Lilolme, Jangles, Mandy, Sweetie Pie, Ash, Megami-Sama, Anaita, Bonebaby, Orange, Killashandra, GoddessNMB1, Oli, Katherine, Diomede, Cianna, Dianna, **and the superb **Shelli. **

Your thoughts are ever adored and pored over, revered, cheered, adulated and venerated - I love to know what you think, criticism is muchly welcome.

Lyrics are from Tom McRae's _Sao Paulo Rain (_Album: Self-titled). I hope you enjoy  
- Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty Three**

_Do not disturb this blood-red earth;  
There's giants sleeping beneath  
And carnival queens on their deathbed scenes  
All go through the motions of grief_

The night was thick and heady, like one giant bruise, filled with clouds. A half-moon shone between the gaps, and its light settled on the ripples in the lake as though it were ivory icing.

He felt the promise of power like a pulse laid under his fingers, and the memory cut him. Ryar's heartbeat under his fingers, knuckles white, hands tight about her throat. The maddened patter of her heart had been like rainfall, like hoofbeats but most of all like what it had been - the sound of her life slowing and slowing until it beat no more.

It seemed as though he heard the delicate slither of her hair on her skin, glimpsed the light moving over her smooth skin in bars, but seeming was not enough. It had never been enough.

Now it began. Never would be forever, and every vow he made to her in the nadir of the night would be fulfilled.

The bag at his feet was full, stocked with the tools of another trade, the tools of the witches who had scattered his people to the four winds, made dust of their bones and lies of their achievements. He drew each item out.

Water, fresh from the tap. A tin of salt. A stick of incense. A small jar that held the ground powder of his missing horn, mixed with blood. His, of course. The scroll he had spent so long searching for before it fell into his lap. And a knife.

He knelt, haste making him clumsy; he knocked over the container of salt and it scattered across the ground. He had needed it to put up the wards, but at that moment, Iager took it as a sign. It would take time and power to ward the lake, time he was no longer prepared to spare on a mere formality, another tip of the hat to tradition and ritual. Witches seemed to love complicating even the simplest spells, never mind the most elaborate.

The salt lay scattered, the water and the incense untouched as he turned to the spell.

It never occurred to him that sometimes the world needed sheltering from the whiplash of spells such as this. And even if it had, he no longer cared.

X - X - X - X - X

A mirror, Blue Malefici thought, and smiled because it meant so many things to him alone.

He took a deep breath, and felt the power bubble up in his veins, tickling softly. Dragonfire was like alcohol, pure poisonous ecstasy. Maybe addictive if you let it be, maybe consuming if you hadn't the strength.

He pushed it back with practiced ease to reach for the well of sapphire power that was his own.

Dragon fire could smash the world into shards, but it was useless for fine tuning. Useless for the subtle, patient games he had been playing, useless for careful manipulating, useless for anything, in fact, except miracles.

Miracles were awe-inspiring, but miracles required more faith than he had.

It had been his own skill that had shaped the little enclosed world of Ryars Valley. Idiots, thinking that the world would forget them, all the petty criminals and petty victims that came in their dribs and their drabs, indulging their anger and their self-pity and their rage.

But it had made life easier for him. A little too easy, if truth be told. Blue liked the challenge, and now that he had so much power, almost no one dared confront him.

And then she had stood before him with her broken, hurting heart and her steady defiance, and her dread that tangled round her like the knots in that sooty hair. At last, Blue Malefici had discovered the trial of fire he had wanted.

He'd broken people with fear. He had broken them with their own hate. With anger. With lust.

He'd never broken anyone with love.

So here she was: more intriguing than politics, or death, or even the sheer joy of the hunt. For three years, the effects of that first meeting had lived with him.

It had been like waking to the smash and crash of thunder: he had felt the glow of possibility in his veins, felt his life bound up with hers and realised that here, truly, was something to make the world flamboyant and searing, alight with promise and threat and risk.

Chatoya Irkil was dangerous, and she didn't even know why, or how.

And he'd seen in her...

Yes, he'd seen things he hadn't wanted to, but Blue did not lie to himself. He'd seen pieces of himself in her, he'd seen maybe what he might have been if the world had been different, if he had wanted to be different. Seen her secrets, her memories, and seen all those tiny intimacies he could use against her.

She had handed him a dragon's soul, and given him the key to a past filled with unimaginable intensity.

And now, as he looked in the mirror before he left, and carefully allowed that alien gift to seep into his veins, he saw his face change dramatically. His irises dulled to a gushing, river-green colour ringed in heavy black, and around them, his skin darkened to a velvety olive. The angles of his bones were tempered, and his mouth thinned out. The scandalous azure of his hair became brown.

It was only an illusion, only the powers of a dragon long-gone imprinting themselves onto his vision, but it was perfect. Whole as the memories that drifted to him, rising up in bubbles.

In the mirror, he saw Hael, the fourth – the final – Drax.

X - X - X - X - X

Lance's eyes flew open onto a dead world.

No longer a mass of sizzling graffiti, the sky was black and brooding, waiting to spill over into anarchy. Nothing but a void remained where the lake had been, bare of life and water – except for the stark white tomb that lay in its centre...and her.

She stormed up and down, no longer a mermaid with those slight legs striding back and forth across the pitted earth. As she swung round, her hair slid across her left shoulder in a starry gush to reveal the purpled, harsh imprint of hands about her neck. Not a mermaid, but a heart-rending Ophelia.

Lance nearly recoiled, but held onto his poise by the slimmest of threads.

I've seen dozens of dead people, he thought, confused by his own response. Why should she make any difference? I've seen ghouls, and zombies, and things that would make the reaper's bones rattle. One girl shouldn't be any different.

When she saw him, she stopped. "Lancelot," she said bitterly. "Lancelot Stormshot, the last."

Her voice sent a bevy of shivers through his spine. He felt the anger in it, and was only now aware that however fragile this woman appeared, she had helped break the world.

Unsure what to make of her words, the sparks that spat like hot oil from her eyes, he swept a bow. "Ryar ap Sangager. Ryar Drax. Ryar, wife of Fireblade. Why me?"

Her lips parted, as if she had been about to begin a tirade, and her anger dwindled away. "What?"

It seemed to Lance she would flee at any moment, impossible and untameable as a unicorn. He had lived his life ringed by the inhuman and the exquisite, yet never had seen anything that drew his heart as she did. How had she not been crushed and crumpled in the ravages of her time?

"Why me?" he asked, daring to take a step nearer her. "Why do I dream of you? Why do you haunt me?"

"Don't you know?"

The Australian hiked up an eyebrow, trying to shake the feeling that this world was about to collapse in on itself. "D'you think I'd be standing around looking gormless if I did?"

"You don't strike me as someone who ever stands around. You remind me so much of Hael."

Bit of a dubious compliment, but he jumped on the opening. "Yeah. Well, that was what I wanted to talk to you about. If you remember that is."

The sky burst into one massive, aquamarine furnace. He covered his eyes, futilely trying to shut out the blinding light, and felt tears begin to stream down his face in response.

"I remember," her voice said from the maelstrom. And the sky faded, leaving him with the afterimage of her anguish on his eyelids.

"Will you tell me about it?"

"Your eyes," she said. "I can heal that."

"Dragons can heal?"

Her laugh that was the ripple of satin in the wind, but there was little humour in it. "Your world has forgotten so much. Who do you think taught witches their skill?"

Her touch was liquid, trickling slowly over his eyelids to take away the sting, and he opened his eyes onto her face. Daughter of a king, leader of a revolution – and breakable as bone china. Surely if he reached out, he could snap her bones like dried twigs.

"Do you truly want to know?" she said, and the pain in her eyes beat at him. "Can you bear to hear?"

The words ripped at the air, her grief almost savage. He didn't want to know – he could hardly bear to hear what had caused this woman to suffer so much that it was all that seemed to remain of her, but he had to.

"Yes," he said simply.

"You're a fool, then. As I was."

He shrugged, and parked himself firmly on the cracked ground. "Maybe, but even this fool doesn't want to see a war like that again."

"That war will never come again." How flat and drear her voice as she stood, arms wrapped tight about herself. "I made sure of that."

"Did you?" He stared up at her, yet felt tall and terrible. "Because it seems to me that someone's trying. Did you know there's a girl here with Bhari's powers?"

"I know," she said, and closed her eyes into darkness, but surely nothing could be blacker than the shadows here. "I feel her like a piece of my own soul, even now. Hael too. I feel their power, though the people who hold it are different. Still bold, still brash – but children toying with what will destroy them."

Hael as well? The small glimmers of alarm grew into flames. That made three alive. Three out of four, and that was two too many to be mere coincidence.

"What do you mean, children?" he said urgently.

She shook her head, gloom playing over her face to cast new bruises. "Our power – dragon power – can be passed like a possession. It was why the war was so destructive. One time, that last time, Kheo held all of our powers, every element that made the world, and he unmade it with scarcely a thought." She swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was hurt and husky. "The same has been done with Bhari and Hael. Two others hold earth and air...though I pray they never discover the extent of what they have."

This was not becoming any more reassuring. "Elaborate."

"Possessing another's power is more than just strength. Imagine it...with that power comes a fragment of their soul. Some part of them lies in you, as though you are soulmates, almost." She took a deep, shaking breath, his Lady of the Lake. "We were close once. I knew them like myself, maybe more. Those – children, that is what they are, have more than Bhari and Hael's powers. They have opened their souls to pieces of those people, and to one another. That is what it means to be Drax."

Oh hell. Panic was a monster in his heart. "Ryar – do you know who they are?"

There were dancing, dragonfly flecks in her eyes as she gazed at him. He saw the same fear in her too, the same disturbing thoughts as she understood the implications of what she had said at last.

A simple gesture made water leapt from the ground to coalesce into two forms. Both he knew, and he couldn't stop his fists clenching, and his stomach with them.

The casual, arrogant stance; the hands that had been washed in blood and yet come out pale and clean, those extraordinary eyes that were emptier than this world. Blue Malefici, who simmered with a rippling power that tasted to Lance like a paused hurricane, like winding winds and twisting bands of salt-sea air.

And walking with clumsy human carelessness, the air clutching the long tendrils of black hair, Chatoya Irkil. He thought he glimpsed a new purpose in the way she moved and the taut line of her lips, but her eyes were still changeable and too warm. The halo hugging her body was the smell of mud after rain, and the gritty feel of sand under his nails, and the slipping jaggedness of landslides.

"Shoot me," he said blankly. "Shoot me, decapitate me, drown me. It's going to be less painful."

"You know them?" she asked, as the forms collapsed into spray that flicked onto his crossed legs.

"Like I know you don't stand in a lightning storm wearing plate armour," he answered grimly. "Ryar..." And he paused, because so strange this, that Lancelot Stormshot who had hurled chivalry and honour into the dusty winds like trash, so strange that he should now find himself unwilling to hurt this girl. "Do you know where Fireblade is?"

A moan, as though she died right there again. Maybe it was only his imagination, but the bruises around her neck seemed to darken

Rain began to fall, not the light kissing fall of early winter, but a cruel pounding downpour that brought chunks of hail to slice open skin. But Lance scarcely noticed; he was fixed on her.

"He..." Her legs crumpled under her, and she fell onto the ground, the long sheet of hair shielding her face. And from the storm he formed, shimmering in watery colours that still painted him in fire and horror.  
"He is here too."

So this was the face of a legend. Where Ryar was vulnerability disguising a power she appeared to loathe, Fireblade was solely and completely dominant. How determined that face, carved in strong lines; a tiger's hair, and a tiger's grin hot and white across his face, spilling hunger into the blazing eyes.

And he was here. Lance felt icy poison spread through him. Oh, Malefici had pulled the wool over their eyes like the professional he was.

Fireblade, Bhari, Hael...and here, Ryar.

And he now remembered Malefici's single traitorous thought that Lance had overheard.

_One too few._ Ryar – the one that was missing from the collection, surely. Was there any way to bring someone back from the dead? Not that Lance knew of.

Okay, you can relax, he thought. There are doornails out there more alive. He should go back and tell the guys that it was okay, but he was certain he could afford to squander a few minutes here. So much he wanted to ask.

And it wasn't at all that he wanted to hear the bittersweet beauty of her voice, to lie enthralled and ensnared under her song.

And as she flung her head back, defiant, almost, the ring of discoloration around her throat like a branding, he thought he saw the siren's sparkle in her eyes.

Not at all.

X - X - X - X - X

He'd been born to run.

It was there in the way he moved, with a soft, slinky grace that could turn into pure, driving speed. There in the streamlined planes of his body, all limbs and sinew, and in the deep even breaths he took.

And now he ran like he was chasing down tomorrow, like he was hunting broken promises and fading dreams.

Sometimes, it seemed all he had ever done was to run - from his past, from his lies, from the truth, from everything. In truth, Jepar knew, he had become something less than what he wanted, yet something more than what he'd had any right to expect.

The caves closed around him like old friends, darkening his vision into a mass of moth-winged shadows. If he listened too hard, the thin slivers of air that drifted around in the gloom seemed to hold the strain of tears, of words, of secrets untold.

_It's so dark,_ Lisa whispered. _Keep straight ahead. And hurry, I can hardly feel Cougar as it is._

He didn't waste breath on answering, but ran faster until his muscles were burning with every step, a concentrated throb warning that he would pay for this later, and pay dear. But what the hell, he'd paid all his life – what was a little more?

For a while, there were only her quiet instructions, clear and confident. Jepar followed blindly, putting all his faith in what Lisa was telling him. She could only give him vague directions; when he came to forks, or stumbled on dead ends, he had to choose or turn back and try to find another way.

_Jepar..._ Lisa's voice was unsteady. _I'm scared._

_Me too,_ he answered, stumbling into another cul-de-sac. Damn it, why hadn't he taken more time to learn where this – this rat-warren – ran? The winding passageways twisted and turned like the motives of the man who had made them.

Fork. Three way. He hardly stopped, but plunged straight into the waiting dark, into the left-hand passage. His night-vision was no use where light was denied. He was blind as any human, trusting to his other senses to keep him from slipping over too often.

Twist, and turn, and brush a hand against the strangely flat walls that he swore almost moved under his touch. Floating almost now, his body moving exactly as he wanted in one lithe, swift movement after another until-

Light gleamed like starlight in front of him and before he could even tell himself to slow, he had burst into a room that was vast and graceful and arching up into a perfect, marbled dome. His feet told him this was no longer rough stone but hard, patterned tiles and a glance down confirmed he stood on a glorious sunburst of mosaics that painted a world ablaze.

He finally came to a stop in the middle of it, stunned. Meaning to only stop for a second, he saw the carvings etched into the stone, painted over with flaking gilt, and flaking silver, and peeling pitch. And between the two entrances that cut the room in half, an altar either side of the room made like a cylinder with grooves spiralling down the side, flanked by massive torches that burned not orange, but austere white.

But then he saw it.

The body. And the blood.

He swallowed hard. It seemed obscene, sprawled out on the delicate mosaic of the floor. _Lise...there's a body._

He felt the link between them quiver as she reflected. _See if they're dead,_ she said with a practicality that both surprised and upset Jepar. _If they are – leave them. If not, just...make them comfortable and go. We can't waste time._

Dusty-brown hair – mousy, even, he thought, kneeling to put a hand under the body, to flip it onto its back. Tall, and with muscles that had been toned and strong in life. Dancer's muscles – he remembered how Vanira had looked when had found her, so like this, with her thick curling hair fanned over the floor, though she had lain on carpet, not tiles.

And he remembered the line of red across her throat.

He turned the body. No crimson necklace. It was a girl, he could see now, not a pretty girl, not a plain girl. A nothing girl, with features he would have been hard-pressed to describe at all. Blood bloomed over her heart like a poison flower.

Under her was a knife, so shiny and black he thought it might be obsidian at first. But it had the odd, trapped warmth of wood. Ebony then, and one of a pair from the other that was clutched in her hand-

"Mistake."

Calm, and collected and utterly chilling, that one word. And Jepar knew at once that it belonged to Blue Malefici and his thoughts scattered-

Jepar never even knew what hit him.

There was only a colossal, smashing pain and Lisa's cut-off cry. He's won again, he thought, as he tried to cling onto the world, cling onto the shifting reality that made it seemed as if the girl moved in his hands-

A figure over him, with eyes that burned as cold as neutron stars. "Caring is such a terrible mistake," it said. "The same one she made."

And then nothing except one last, sliding thought that clung even as the world vanished.

Blue's won.

X - X - X - X - X

And here was a prime example of stupidity.

Blue nudged the shapeshifter with his foot, checking he wasn't showing an unexpected display of intelligence and faking. As if.

Then his attention moved to Sandrine's body. His expression was a mixture of amusement and – something that might have surprised a good number of people who knew him – an emotion close to respect.

He had betrayed her, flung her to the vampires and left. And she had risen from it like a flawed phoenix, thrown away the scraps of her old life and followed him into the slick shadows of the Furies. A human in an inhuman world, and she had survived, burning hot with vengeance and anger that she thought training and the grind of that almost-life had erased.

How carelessly she had stalked into his home, the relaxed, predatory movements of her body and the deadness of her eyes.

He had looked her up and down, looked at the efficient clothes and said, _Dressed to kill?_

_Yes,_ she had answered and drawn the ebony blades...

"Very nice," he remarked now. "Although trapping the terminally compassionate is a little like using a ballistic missile on an anthill."

...and knelt before him, some spark of life flickering in her, something almost worshipful. Her voice had been firm and even. _Anyone you want,_ she said, and swore fealty in the old way; a slice of the knives across her wrists so her blood dripped onto his carpet as she handed him the blades and drew back her hair to bare her throat.

An old, old gesture, disparaged by most assassins, and flourishing in the minds of the fanatics. I will die at your gesture, at your word, it said. I will bleed for you. And I will live for you, if so you choose.

Blue had been grudgingly impressed.

Now, Sandrine stood, wiping bloody hands on her knees. His blood. Blue didn't mind losing a little in a good cause.

"Another one," she commented mildly. "Just two to go, and then..."

She breathed in deeply, as if she inhaled the promise of this plot that unfolded so neatly, pieces of the jigsaw he had scattered about clicking into place one by one by one.

"He isn't necessary," Blue said calmly. "And he doesn't have the power that will be necessary."

Her eyes lit again, nearly the pensive grey they had been when she daydreamed herself out of the enclave. "What difference does it make?"

However vague her face, he knew she would cling to his words like the student she was. Slowly, she had learned to use the intrigues and dangers of the Nightworld to her own advantage. It had been years ago, when she had crawled to his feet, limp and beaten and bloodied by the Nightfire fools who saw only prey. The same fools he gave to her to dispose of for her first duty, two years later.

Among Nightfire, they noted only how she snarled and spat at Blue wherever the hungry eyes of the inhuman and murderous watched; they saw the casual blows that flung her into a corner, the sharp words. How gleefully they had all watched when he outcast her and laid on her the curling black spiral that was a death-warrant.

And every one of them had missed the plans set down in careful concrete with time and patience. She had left with bruises and cuts on her face with each conversation, but none of them noticed the reverence in her eyes, for Sandrine had left with instructions too, setting up her part of his scheme as meticulously as he.

After all, she had learned from the best.

"Every difference." He left the shapeshifter, walking back into the dark of the tunnels that he had made sure he knew like he knew his own thoughts. "Enough power, and none of them, however unwilling will resist."

"Resist what?" she asked, though there was no hope for an answer in her voice. He had not revealed why he wanted her to take the contract on his life, why he needed her to raise hell in Washington, to trap him a vampire victim. She had simply done as he demanded.

"What you will see tonight," was his only answer. Yes. What would light the skies with a ferocity, a beauty, a horror not seen in thirty thousand years.

He felt the call ripple through him like a wolf's long, fluting howl, chased by a tempest that stripped the power from his bones.

"It's time," he said, and blue fire fluttered about him like the beating of wings. "You'd best go."

"Now?" She looked at him, and unexpected in her, fear. "But the other three..."

"It's under control," he murmured, as he was lead on, the dragon magick taking him where it would, and he allowed it. Yes, he went to it, willing. Willing, and ready.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya hesitated in front of the door, her hand raised to knock. She wasn't sure this was the right person to come for advice – she wasn't even sure he counted as a person, sometimes – but he was the only option she had left.

The door swung open, and she was nearly bowled over by the whirlwind of energy that was Jodie Slone, who stopped short with a look on her face that boded ill for anyone selling double-glazing or religion.

The witch couldn't help but feel a twinge of unease, as she had bespelled Tam's mother to accept Aspen into their home, and even now, she wasn't sure it was the right thing to have done.

"We can stand on the doorstep all night if you want," Mrs Slone remarked coolly, fixing Chatoya with a stare that reminded her just how much effort it had taken to slash past this human woman's astounding drive. "Which one have you come to see, my daughter or the hooligan?"

Chatoya couldn't help her grin. "The hooligan."

"Good, Tam and I are going shopping." She leaned back into the house as the two other Slone children came out, wrapped up against the winter. "Tamara Angeline Slone, let go of that boy, you don't know where he's been, and the shops shut at six thirty! If you want to choose your birthday present, get here now, or I'll let Billy and Celia pick..."

A flustered Tam appeared, throwing open the door and stumbling down the steps. "Wait, Mom, wait, I don't want another space hopper-" She too paused as she saw Chatoya, faintly puzzled. "Aspen?"

Chatoya nodded. Tam knew about the Nightworld, about Aspen's profession, and she knew Chatoya was a witch. And of course, if she was his soulmate, she knew Chatoya had killed his father.

The human girl brushed past, and as she did, hissed softly, "Thank you. If you hadn't, I'd have lost him." And then hurried on as if nothing had happened, piling into the car – but as the family drove off, Tam turned her face to her, and the witch saw gratitude, and something else – shades of fear.

She was one of the monsters to Tamara Slone.

He was waiting in the hallway, a lean silhouette whose bones showed too sharply in the light of the house. And Chatoya thought how sadly, how little he had altered since she had last seen him – a ruined creature crouched on the floor, a thing shattered by time and touch.

Love could never heal that.

But maybe it would teach him to cope. To be able to pretend again, and spent the night in slumber instead of a waking nightmare, and to walk in darkness without running from the shadows.

"Hey," she said gently, and paused at the top step. "Can I come in?"

Aspen Martin smiled uncertainly. "Of course."

All that had passed between them remained unsaid. She had seen his fractured soul, the battered shape of his life, and he had seen the monster in her that had killed. They had seen pieces of each other that would have been secret even to their friends and their family, yet they were virtual strangers.

"How are you?"

Aspen lead her into the living room – a family room, filled with photos and certificates for swimming, with medals and videos and books – and perched on a chair. "Do you really want me to tell you?"

She met the haunted, child's eyes. "No. I think...I might know." A deep breath. Here it was. "I've done a very stupid thing."

"And you think I'm the person to help you?" A shy, engaging grin took some of the apprehension from him, and Chatoya was glad. "Well, I'm good at doing stupid things. If you want to do some more, I can help you there."

"I need advice."

"Advice? From me? But...I don't know anything. Nothing you'd want to know."

"You can help me on this one. Of all of them – you're the most qualified to. Please..." She could have called in the favours he owed her, but she didn't. Neither of those times were proud memories.

Aspen drew his knees up to his chest, and hooked his arms around them as if that would bar the world from him. "Okay," he muttered at last, and worried, peeked around his legs. "But I can't promise to be any use. You know that. So...what is it?"

She told him in three words.

And he burst into hysterical howls of laughter.

Chatoya told him again.

And then, then with his strange eyes, one opal blue, and one a clear, icy pink, wide, with his mouth open and a stunned silence between them – then Aspen Martin believed her.

_Take another hit, let the bottle slip through your fingers and break like a promise made…  
The day I remember, my heart I will keep, my voice I surrender  
And I will not speak to lie._


	35. Chapter Thirty Four

Lyrics taken from _Desert Rose_ by Sting (Album: Brand New Day)

**Chimera Part Thirty Four**

_I dream of fire  
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire  
And in the flames,  
Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire_

Still crouched in the murky end of the lake, Lisa felt Jepar vanish from her senses completely, blinking out like a lightbulb.

_Cougar,_ she said, grimly abandoning any thought that her shapeshifter friend had had an accident. This was too inconvenient to be mere coincidence. _Jepar's gone._

_Gone? What do you mean, gone?_

_He's just...Oh. Sweet. God._

Her nails were digging into her palms, her hands balled into fists. No, no, this could not be happening. She felt herself begin to shake at what she saw, at the man who stood wreathed in hellfire across the lake. He was a living pyre, an atrocity walking and she knew at once.

Fireblade.

_Lise? What's-_

_Fireblade at the lake...doing something. Listen, I don't like this at all._

_Really?_ Sarcasm filled his voice. _I'm having a blast – I must get tortured more often._

What was the dragon doing? His voice floated to her dimly, but the language was older than any she knew, and sent revulsion down her spine. Whatever it was, it was sorcery, and it was wrong as the flames haloing him.

_I'm coming to get you,_ she said. _I-_

Cougar was gone. He'd slid from her like soap, and however wildly she searched, she could find no trace of him, nothing but a growing wrongness where the dragon was.

And Lisa was afraid.

First Jepar, now Cougar, and all while this dragon spoke a spell that was monstrous in sound, monstrous in sight. It had to be him.

She would stop this.

X - X - X - X - X

If this is what dreams were like, he thought, staring at the one unbroken thing in a shattered world, I wish I could spend every minute asleep.

Lance didn't understand the way he felt about Ryar. He'd scarcely met her, yet something that he saw in her struck deeply in him, made him feel curiously protective. It was stupid – it was madness – but he wanted to wrap his arms about her, and tell her that the world was not the feral, wicked place it had been in her last days, even though he knew it was a lie.

He'd tell any lie to take away that pain. It reminded him too much of...other times. Other places and people.

"You called me the last," Lance said. "The last of what? The big spenders? The Mohicans?"

She paused in her relentless, restless pacing, and even that movement was sylph-graceful, as if she herself was only liquid bound loosely to her form. "Don't you know?"

"Know what?"

Narrowed eyes focused on him with an intensity that was more than a little unnerving. In them, he thought he glimpsed a roaring wall of violet like a tidal wave, and wondered why he thought this woman needed his protection.

"You really don't." There was surprise in her voice. "How can you not?"

"Just pig-ignorant, I guess," he answered flippantly, but again she had roused the itch of curiosity in him. "Am I destined for fame, fortune and mass media scrutiny?"

She gave him a puzzled little frown, as if he was some child gabbling in a made-up language, but Lance stared right back.

"There's a power in you," she said finally, and sighed, soft as a breeze lifting leaves. "It is like my own, a child of it. A child..."

"If you tell me you're my long-lost grandmother, there's going to be trouble," Lance said firmly.

He was surprised to wring a smile from her, surprised even more at the sudden sweetness that shone out in her face. It was something rare, something precious.

"No. But it is...my fault, in a way." She came closer, with an antelope's light steps, until he had to crane his neck. "During the war when things were worst of all..."

She knelt and before he could move, raked her hand into his hair. And he drew in breath, he looked at those haunted eyes with their sea-shell slivers, he saw-

The frantic day when Fireblade had snapped all that remained between them; that day when he had left the heads of her brothers, one, two, three, on her bed as a token of his regard – and a warning. Ryar saw them, and her breath caught as his did now. There were no tears left to fall from eyes already sore with weeping, so she had only turned to walk out of that place, step after measureless step.

She'd passed Bhari and Hael on the street; how drawn Hael had been by then, all the joy leached from him with his own family's death. Bhari clung to him, trying to bring back the laughing lover who had moved even her stone heart.

Passing them and nodding once, feeling the call of their powers as she always did when they were near, yearning to be one, to destroy and to make the world bleed.

Reaching the edge of their now ragged encampment; the day she knew had to come was here.

She had turned and looked back. Crumbling buildings, pitted ground, swollen, fire-streaked skies. This was what they had brought, despite all she had done. Despite what Fireblade had thought careless mistakes; she had quenched infernos, made sure the flood waters she flung into settlements did not drown, but carried instead. Yet still too many deaths and too much lost.

One long, last look, as the clouds slid over at her asking, before the grey sheets of stinging rain covered it all.

The rain covered her path as she left all that she had once thought home. She went to the witches to give what help she could, as she had promised.

She had waited too long. The intricate, careful web of the resistance was crumbling now, and Ryar was unsure her people would turn to fight their family and once-friends for the sake of these witches and humans. Kheo's rage had been more terrible and more brutal than any of them had imagined.

She could not ask them to throw their lives away. She could only toss hers to the winds, and hope it might flutter like a flag to draw them. To remind them that they could not let themselves be ruled by fear and violence now, or they would be conquered by it and consumed by it forever.

Ryar ap Sangager went to the witches alone. Alone, and terrified.

Yes, it was her fear that had led her to what she had done. It was a crime of love, but a crime nonetheless.

"What did you do?" breathed Lance, dizzy with her fear and her pain washing over him.

Her other hand came up to cup his face, and pull him near, so near that he felt the strange, chilled passage of her breath, and near drowned in her despairing gaze. Oh, gods, how he wanted to take away this anguish that was his too, to wash it away in a torrents of scalding water that would cleanse them all and make the world simple again.

"I asked for the one thing they could least afford to give." Only a tortured whisper between them, and the wretched, tight grip of her fingers. "I asked for their children."

X - X - X - X - X

Iager was lost to it, lost to the words that tumbled one after the other from his throat, that tripped into the air and filled his world with hope, with this sacred pledge.

I love you, he thought. I love you, come back to me. I miss you singing me to sleep.

Tears streamed down his face, and were turned to steam by the fire that was bright and brilliant over his body, waiting for focus. Waiting for that moment – that sweet, so-near moment – when the world would rip open, when death and life would not be separated.

He understood what the enchantment wanted. It took great power to pry the reaper's cold fingers from the souls he clutched close in his dark empty world, and power he had, the horn crushed in his clenched hand.

But more than power.

He would give life.

And he would bring death. A death for a life – and that meant a life for a death. Because of what he had done, someone would die untimely and he prayed – he was almost sure – it would be him. How fitting that he should do what he should have long ago, and gift his pitiful existence to Ryar, who had been so much more.

He hurled the powdered horn onto the lake, and spoke the words that would forge a path to that realm of dust and bitter memories. To her.

Before him, the inky waters parted, rolled back with the damp, scratchy sound of shoes pulled from sucking mud. Back, and back until they were two towering ramparts that arrowed down to the white, rectangular tomb.

A flick of his fingers tossed the lid carelessly into the air before it smacked down onto the sludge. And still the deep, tolling syllables fell from him, remaking the world the way it ought to have been, rewriting the past, blocking out his sins.

The sky split open, and he reached for her.

X - X - X - X - X

No... No, that couldn't be right. She was Ryar ap Sangager – she was Ophelia, she was a mermaid, a unicorn, the lady of the lake buried deep in time and grief, she was all the things that he had thought stirred nothing in his armoured soul.

But her eyes confirmed it. She hated herself for it, and now he thought he understood why she had let Fireblade take her breath and her life.

It had been her penance. She had been her own judge and jury.

"I couldn't think of any other way," she confessed, her face waxen and her words tearing at him. "I was afraid – afraid everything we had fought for would be worthless. I wanted them to have a chance, so I did the only thing I could do. I took the babies and I poured my life and my magic into them."

Flashes of a smoky sky, of choking air that had burned in her lungs and tears that dried clean in the grime on her skin. And power, boundless as the ocean, slewing from her into the children, one by one as she herself swallowed their sickness and their fragility. She had known it would weaken her forever, known it would make these children something more than witches, something less than dragons – but all the same, she did it.

One by one, they died, not made for monstrous powers such as hers.

Except two.

One looked at her with infant eyes as shining and unsullied as the first day of dawn, his skin the harsh, icy colour of sea foam. The child crackled with power, an unnatural thing, a thing that if it grew to adulthood would be filled with danger and spider-subtlety. And the hair that had been fine and dark was now the colour of gloomy oceans, an arcane navy.

The other was a girl with skin that shone as though water covered it, and tiny webbed fingers; with curling, frothy white hair and eyes as shockingly green as the sea, oddly recognisable. Ryar had felt the tiny fingers melt under her touch and reform, like sand dribbling through her hands, and knew she had made something both beautiful and terrible.

She gave the children to the strongest who still lived, and sent them far away, using the last remnants of her power to spin them over the oceans to where she hoped lay safe shores.

Empty, she thought then all was lost.

"Wasn't it?" Lance asked, daring to break the hush.

A shake of her head, so silver hair brushed his body. "I thought I would stand alone with the witches. I was wrong. The next day, they came – they'd been waiting for me, you see. Waiting for me to be brave." Her laugh was a choked, hacking sound. "Hundreds of them – so many, in every form you can imagine, with whatever possessions they could steal or salvage, with their families, their friends...dragons. I took them to their deaths..."

"What I did was a terrible thing," she said. "The life those children must have had...I did them no favours."

He could imagine. Neither of those children had not been Blue Malefici, never, but he was certain – positive – the boy-child had to be one of his ancestors. The images were too, too close, and it explained the phenomenal powers Blue had even for a lamia.

"What's this got to do with me?" he asked sharply.

There was near pity in her then. "Don't you know, Lance? That girl...she began your family. I feel my own power in you – and you have her eyes. Oh god, I look at you, and I see the horror I made staring back."

Wonderful. Just wonderful. Another black mark on the family tree. The Stormshots had enough trouble in the Nightworld because old Gramps had been a convict. They didn't need their founder to be a whacked-out dragon creation.

"But I've never done anything weird," he protested. Well, not that kind of weird. Working for Pursang meant he came up against a lot of things that weren't exactly run-of-the-mill, cannibal vampires, faeries, angry shark-shifters and one very tetchy devil included.

"It's weak in you. Very weak. Maybe you just...like the rain."

"I like pina coladas too," snapped Lance, "but that doesn't mean I've got your powers."

Her voice was resolutely convinced. "Maybe if you look at your life, you'll find-"

And then she gasped, and clutched at him with fingers that felt like bone. As he stared, paralysed by disbelief, the flesh seemed to melt from her face until the billiard-ball smoothness of her skull gleamed through.

"No..." The voice was aged, old as desert dust tumbling through ruins, and it scraped along his soul. "No, he can't!"

Her eyes were collapsing in, becoming drained holes but horror lingered in them, her skeleton clung to him frantically, that long sail of silvery hair withering into brittle threads.

She fell apart, right there in his arms.

"Ryar!" he shouted. "What's happening?"

"He's done it," she wailed like winds scratching over reeds. The ground lurched, and he saw fissures grow in it, spiking outwards in fast jagged lines. "He's calling me, calling me back! Please, stop him-"

The words dissolved into a high piteous wail and he felt her bones crumple on his skin like a dried-out sand castle, becoming dirt, becoming earth-

And the sky broke open, hewn in two by a streak of orange fire that brought howling winds in its wake that flung Lance to the ground and whipped the remnants of Ryar ap Sangager into the air. He thought he heard a man's voice over it all, crying out discordant words in a language he did not know, over the scream of the wind and the cracking of the ground as what had remained of Ryar's world disintegrated.

Blackness ate across it like a leviathan army of cockroaches, wriggling, shiny black. Nowhere for him to run, nothing he could do as the abyss yawned under his feet, as his foot slipped and he fell, fell, fell...

And opened his eyes onto water.

X - X - X - X - X

One moment there was nothing; next, everything.

She was sat demurely in the Slone's living room, her hands warmed about some hot chocolate when the pull shot through her, like an invisible hand tugging on an iron chain running straight to her heart.

It yanked her forward, the mug flying from her hand to crash against the coffee table and fling liquid everywhere. Her knees crunched on the floor, her head snapping forward so hard she bit her tongue.

She was dimly aware of Aspen springing to his feet, of that first, inevitable flinch back before he reached for her with trembling hands, and blanched skin.

Chatoya had never felt anything like it, as though her heart was trying to hammer out of her body in a slow, inexorable crunch-crunch-crunch. She tried to prop herself up with her hands, but her body was jerking like a landed fish, and only harsh gasps escaped her.

The lamia grabbed her as if he would lug her to her feet and shake sense into her – and she felt the power reach out, race out from her like the shock of a quake and rip through him.

His scream echoed through her, and she thrust him away from her, only wanting that banshee cry silent, wanting to find peace in a world made fire. And he was forgotten.

Chatoya scrabbled for purchase, for sanity, for anything but found only the pull and underneath it, a terrible craving that the blood filling her mouth did not satisfy. Not right, she knew somehow. Not...not...

What the hell is this? She wanted to scream out against the jolt, jolt, jolt of her heart, smashing itself against her ribs like waves on rocks.

_The beginning,_ a voice answered, the dark, feminine voice of dragonfire. _What we were, we shall be._

We? We? Chatoya shrieked at it, managing to get from her knees into a rocking half-crouch. Where's the we in this?

Onto her feet, and she realised that if she moved with it, the pull didn't hurt so much. Each step forwards lessened it, as if - as if she was being taken somewhere. Somewhere-

An image flashed into her head - a vision, clear-cut as a Polaroid. A shimmering rolling mass, turned into silk by the fire that shone over it, fire that poured out of the man who stood before it. And though she couldn't see his face, Chatoya knew it was Iager.

He was doing it. Goddess, he really was. And she was caught up in it now, dragged a prisoner into the clutch of the spell. She could only follow dumbly, and pray that she would see the end of the night.

In the low, thrumming grip of that force, she was no longer in control. Her senses seemed more potent, filled with the lustrous scents and sounds of the night that she passed through, her feet leaving no imprint on the ground.

And in her head, voices roared and rushed; over her eyes lay a film of memories playing out so fast that she lurched in the grip of them, unable to control her own body.

A flash of orange, hellfire eyes; the crackling scent of smoke. "They say that stone can't burn...but it can melt, can't it, Bhari?"

Chatoya stumbled, and fought. She was not Bhari. She was not-

Oh, the feel of skin on skin in biting nights, the ripple of lips on her stomach. Her sighs, and her hands reaching out to tangle and thread in the thick dark hair. Her feelings twisted like charmed snakes as he raised his head to show her the desire in river-green eyes.

Hael, she thought, and the thought struck a strange fleeting pain. Oh Hael, I betrayed you too, like I did my homeland and my family. I gave them to Kheo to crack open and devour, and I gave you to the war. If I had been stronger, if I had not wanted the glory and the torrents of blood and death and others' pain running slick and hot down my throat – I could have saved you.

Did I love you?

No! Chatoya wrestled with those sensations, but the power and the hurt within them was overwhelming. Bhari was a monster – every legend only confirmed it. How could she have loved Hael? The Drax had been inhuman.

But there was so much anguish in those long-lost feelings.

It woke too many of her own bitter memories; of Josh, kneeling in her arms, of Sonj staring down a monster with a smile shining on her face, of the days when the neat white and black lines of her world had fallen into shadow.

She was not Bhari. Not that monster, only her power. She had not thrown her people to the waiting jaws of Kheo-

The memory knocked her aside so violently that she fell, and skinned her knees on the rough and ready road, but Chatoya didn't notice; she was looking at the gaping jaws of a boy whose muscles pulled taut and streamlined, and the gleaming rows of teeth above her.

And then he stopped yawning, and shut his mouth. "Bhari, my love, my sweet, my prize," he said pleasantly and she knew without being told that she looked into the dark rainbow eyes of Kheo. "This clemency is most unusual in you...surely you see that we cannot turn back, not now?"

"This will bring war," another voice said, musical as the wind playing over pipes, a voice she was used to hearing saying her name with a tenderness she had never thought lay under that irreverent, implacable exterior.

Kheo reached up to rub his scalp luxuriously. "And?"

The snap of Hael's steps as he strode forward. Anger pulled tight his skin against his face. "What do you mean, and?"

She added her own voice to Kheo's, gliding to stroke a lone finger over his arm in a light, quivering touch, using every trick she possessed to win Hael to their cause as she had won him to herself. "Surely you see we cannot let these children, these witches run free."

There was anger in the way he brushed aside her hand, and Bhari was shocked to find that it brushed some deeper part of her with hurt. He had swept her aside, he had stood up to her.

"To be perfectly honest, no, I don't." There was challenge in the near-scornful way he eyed Kheo. "Are you so insecure in our power that you think these creatures will be any threat? Let them exist."

"They have powers similar to ours." The dazzling, fanged smile was Kheo's personal warning; the smile of the hulking cats that slunk about the edges of the woodland kingdom. Hael's home once, before Kheo and Fireblade and she had conquered it, and found their fifth who even now stood outside their trio, free as the breezes he commanded. "_We_ know that our powers must be tempered."

Kheo believed no such thing, Bhari was sure. Only the strong could survive in this world, and the strong survived by eradicating any threat to them. And if these witches could not withstand the power of the Drax – well then, they were obviously not strong enough to live. It was how it had always been, but Hael never seemed to understand that.

"Then guide them," argued Hael. "They could be useful to us, if their powers are truly as ours."

The argument had gone on for hours and hours, circling the same points endlessly. For a whole moon's turn Hael debated, and compromised, and fought. And then the witches stormed the forestlands and slew his parents.

He had never really been the same afterwards.

And then Fireblade had betrayed her. Betrayed her to Hael, who had turned from her in one incisive gesture – not from the war, it was all too late for that – but he had kept his heart a locked chest.

No! Chatoya had never known Hael, she had never known any of them. How could she be torn by a war that had happened aeons before she was even born? It terrified he to think that the destruction and the terror could reach across the void of the years as though nothing had changed. To think that the old scars on someone else's heart could be opened afresh on her own.

Please, she thought, clinging to the shreds of herself as a flimsy defence. Please, no more pain.

But it seemed all her life had been sorrow and hatred and anger, blazing in an inferno, blazing in a world of splendour and danger. She'd burned all her life, and she was so tired, so weary...

No! Chatoya squeezed her eyes shut and thought of everything she was. It was hard to ignore the memories darting at her every moment, but somehow, she drew her own thoughts about her, her own feelings.

Of the sullen, angry boy who struck unexpected places in her heart and drew her smiles, her laughter, her pity, her regret. The same eyes lowered, so she could only gaze at coal eyelashes and the smoky purple shadows under them, at the strong face, the clenched fists and wish she felt something she did not.

The silky slide of her hands on wet hair before she ruffled it until Jepar stepped back and shook his head like a terrier, flicking water. The shivery, stolen kisses in a cave where the rocks dug jagged in her knees and the way her name sounded the thousands of times it had been said, in intimacy, in outrage...in parting.

The careful brushes of polish onto her fingers in shocking, candy-cute pink, pale skin against dark skin as Lisa examined her handiwork and nodded approval over Chatoya's make-up. Fifteen then, and life full of giggles and worries over hair and boys – and Cougar, who deserved a category all of his own. And the sheer betrayal on Lisa's face when she'd caught them at the ball.

And...

And...

And him.

The icy, merciless truth that made his eyes so hard to meet, and the strange warmth of his arms when he held her, and somehow, he'd held her too often, spun her a trap without ever keeping her near him. The sheer, breathless beauty that lay in his every movements, that sounded with gothic glory in his voice, that was in his every physical feature, that she had believed missing utterly from his soul.

Until those astounding glimpses into who and what he was; that dark, quick humour and the iron-strong sense of duty to the few people he held in any regard. His unexpected compassion to her, and his incessant, incredible stinging honesty. And the way he touched her.

Yes. That was who she was. Those were the pieces that made up Chatoya Irkil, but a horrible feeling of condemnation had settled on her.

Pain. Regret. Fear. Hatred. How was she so different from Bhari?

And she knew, as clear as a bell tolling through her body. All those things, true, but none of them caused intentionally. None of them caused for their own sake; all of them caused through avoiding war, be it war of the heart, of words, even of land.

That was where the difference lay.

And now she felt herself again, able to thrust back that torrent of long gone passions for the moment. Able to-

Goddess.

She drew in a sharp breath. The cold air burned as it filled her lungs, but she barely noticed. She could only stare, and for a moment even the unearthly tug couldn't shift her frozen feet.

Mists billowed out from the lake, glittering with green and blue phosphorescence. In the midst of the haze, she could see a silhouette that traced symbols through the air; they resonated on her magical senses.

Danger. Resolve. Need. And the one thing that would produce more power than any of the other three: love.

He brought his hands down sharply and flames rocketed up, out, searing the sparkling mist into a fine spiralling smoke, cutting a path to him. Dragon magic clung to him in black strands, darkness half-tamed, sunlight corrupted.

Fireblade, she thought, and knew everything he had meant to Bhari. She knew the way he swivelled from his hips to look back over his shoulder at her; he was achingly familiar. And she knew that he had heard that thought, easily as if she had screamed it.

_Not anymore, Bhari,_ he answered.

Their eyes met, and the dragon fire roared up through her.

She screamed as the power knocked her down, as agony blasted out to her fingertips and the balls of her feet. It ate her alive, and she felt everything she was crumble to char under it.

No...she thought of blue, of endless, soaring blue that was ice and...

She thought of...

She...lost.

X - X - X - X - X

Here, Bhari thought. Here is where it changes for us all.

Their last came from out the mists like a shadow of the past, and she felt even the raging in her veins shrink at the sight of this boy who was Hael, and yet who was not; who stood so calm and tall with his sleek, glacial smile that never touched the blasting blue of his eyes.

She knew him, and she knew him not.

But as he moved past her, she reached for him unthinkingly, unable to stop herself clutching at the man who had been held so long, so close in her heart. And her fingertips grazed his cheek.

Those startling blue eyes melted into a surging, olive green and she felt the warm embrace of air. She knew with joy that it was Hael as he had been before the war; Hael reckless and flippant and fizzing with life, with laughter, dancing wild on the winds.

"Hael?" she whispered, hardly daring to believe.

The old, irreverent smile flared though it seemed a little more aloof than she remembered. "If you wish."

How she had wished.

Bhari threw back her head and laughed because Hael had come back to her, Fireblade had come back to her, and it was as if the war and all its useless cruelty had never happened. Yes, they would bring back Ryar too and it would be as it should always have been, the four of them, bound.

And then she frowned, and rubbed a strand of her hair between her fingers. Yes, her hair was black, but it had never been this long. And with curious hands she traced her own features. Wrong too...wrong...

But then wind blasted back through the rip in the sky, winds that flung away the mist and hung in front of Iager in a shimmering pattern of dust. And Bhari forgot what had begun to puzzle her and held her breath.

Their fourth. No longer would they be one too few.

She felt Fireblade's power like a hammer on a forge, great force that shaped the world. It was the smell of smoke in her nostrils and the crackle of flames in her ears; the spit of volcanoes, the glow of the sun as his last words crashed onto the waiting night.

Dust became bone, uniting, forming into the thin, slight skeleton that hung before them. So much power in the air that it sent sparks jumping from her skin – how she wanted to help, to lend her own to speed this but she could not.

Flesh grew on those bones like creepers covered a wall, faster and faster, hair sprouting from her head, falling over the unmarked body; her fingers flexed, once, twice as Fireblade slumped to his knees, draining every resource he possessed.

Her feet kicked, and those startling violet eyes snapped wide open.

The force in the air was gone, and Ryar ap Sangager dropped to the ground with a little thump. For a moment, she lay immobile.

Then her head tilted up, and in those clear eyes lay the sheen of tears. She was so tiny, Bhari realised as if for the first time, crouched against the ground with her skin pale as seashells in the half-moon's glow, with her ashy hair falling about the fresh, fearful face.

For the first time in thirty thousand years, Ryar ap Sangager drew breath.

And screamed.

_Sweet desert rose  
This memory of Eden haunts us all  
This desert flower,  
This rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of the fall. _


	36. Chapter Thirty Five

Adorations and worship to the angels who commented last time round. Thanks to:

**Debbi, Bonebaby, Anaita, Arc-en-Ciel, Hidden Jewel, Rowan, Yume, Adelaide E, Persephone, Nabby, Jangles, Dream Wind, Cacat-angel, Daugain, Phire Phoenix, Shelli, Frak of the week, Megami-Sama, Girltype, Dianna, The Mistress of Frost, Goddess, GoddessNMB1, Yodel, Doughnuts-mmm, Belladonna, Oli, Sitara, Charmaine, LinnetJo, Ceallaigh, Stacy, Sharmeen **and the wonderful** Pyrope,  
**

Lyrics are Finch's _Awake_, (Album: What It Is To Burn). Much love,  
Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty Five**

_Silence broken with words unspoken  
Now she's on her knees._

Ryar ap Sangager had always had the voice of a nightingale: it was what Bhari remembered most about her. The richness and poignancy of it throbbed in all those songs that had sounded out the swansong of the old world.

There was no such beauty in the scream that was torn from her. Her thin hands were clamped to her face as if Ryar was trying to block out the sight of this world, this life, this awakening.

Bhari glanced over at Hael and saw the strangest thing. He was smiling, as if that sound stirred his soul like music.

That smile. In that instant, the scene before Bhari flickered and blurred. She stood in her blazing past again, a goddess, brazen and fearsome.

Back to the moment when she, spying on his homeland, had first met Hael. Kheo had just been crowned then, and after devouring her own homeland, and conquering Fireblade's, the new king sought to add to his triumphs.

She had found herself a quiet cave deep in the tropical, woody land to hide the information she garnered, a stash full of maps and snippets of rumour that messengers came to collect every day. Close enough from the main city to sneak in and out; far enough for the messengers' comings and going to be unnoticeable.

It had been just another evening in a long trail; she had waved away the nervous courier with a bundle of papers, and collected Kheo's latest list of suggestions for stirring the murky political waters of the forest people. Bhari had thought herself alone, and settled herself for a night of deciphering Kheo's awful writing.

She never even saw him, until he spoke.

"Bhari."

She spun to find a young man sat on the ground cross-legged, quite calm. At once, she knew he was a Drax; his power had tugged at hers like lodestone, drawing her attention to the merry sparkle in his eyes.

"That is what they call you, isn't it?" The boy had deliberately looked her up and down, then leaned back on his hands. "The Deceiver. The Destroyer. Kheo's kitten."

She had been more proud then. A little twist of her powers had called the earth beneath him. Plants leapt to snare his hands with unnatural toughness, creepers twining about his throat. The mud rose to cover his feet, and hardened into granite.

Held utterly still, the knowing slant of his smile had only widened.

"No one's kitten, boy." Just to show him which of them was free, she had stretched-

She had tried to stretch, and found the air about her immovable as marble. Those green eyes laughed at her, but without malice. A delighted mischief lit them, an exuberance lost to Kheo, cruel in Fireblade.

"An Air Drax," she said smoothly, her face immobile. "You Westerners haven't had a Drax born in years."

His smile vanished, replaced by wariness. "What if I am?"

"There are better places for you than cowering under straggling leaves." An odd excitement pattered in her heart. Another Drax; to make them five, and whole.

"If you think I'm leaving here, you're much mistaken. You won't make me like Ryar ap Sangager."

"Ryar made herself that way."

"Perhaps." The boy had a quirky face; unusual in an age where the preferred form was symmetrical, startling perfection. Yet she found allure in the dimple that popped up in his left cheek, and the smattering of freckles on his nose. "But I have to wonder, Bhari, what you're doing in my homeland. I've heard no word of a diplomatic visit."

"And the cloudforest leader whispers his every plan in your ears, does he?" she said scornfully.

"As a matter of fact, he does. He is my brother, after all."

His brother? But that would make him...

"Hael," he confirmed. "I see you've heard of me."

Heard of him? There was no one within a thousand leagues who had not heard of this unusual being who would keep no slaves. Rumour said he had been the mysterious dragon to gift the humans some of his blood, and so transform them into the mortals called witches.

And he was no boy. He was twice her age, maybe more. Hael had walked the earth with the first of their kind. Only his brother, and Fireblade's mother were older.

"You have been mentioned in passing," she had acknowledged coolly, flexing her power against the shield of air holding her inert. "Though no one mentioned you were a Drax."

The bonds about her vanished. Unprepared, she had fallen forward onto the ground, grazing her knees.

"No one knows." He met her shocked eyes with equanimity. "You're the only one who has ever sensed it. You're the only one I've ever been able to feel this way."

"Not even your brother?" Casual. Air. The one they were missing. He would fill the gap she felt hollow at the base of her ribcage when they combined their powers. The only Five Drax living, and they complemented each other perfectly. It could not be coincidence. "Not even your mate?"

"I have no mate," he said cheerfully. "Thick head and fickle heart, I'm afraid. As for my brother..." He exhaled slowly, the look on his face startlingly young. "I have heard his views on Drax too often. Born in a dark age, and not fit to live in a burning one. Monstrous misfits. Throwbacks. No, no one knows."

"That's a dangerous game to play," she had said.

Hael only shrugged. "Maybe."

They fell silent, and she had only looked at him. It seemed there was a breach in her heart that he filled perfectly; he was the caress of breezes on a hot day, the swirling of feathers on air, the draught in her lungs.

Even on that first day, his charm had crept into her heart with the stealth of a skilled thief, and prised her open to the creep and assault of his very self.

"I should report you," he mused aloud, breaking that tranquillity. "My brother would be most interested to find you in our home. Kheo has eaten up the deserts, and the mountains – would he devour us too?"

"Ally with you." Dancing carefully about the point. Ally was a safe word. "Kheo merely wishes to confer. But he feared an embassy would be taken for..."

"Spies?" He raised dark brows, and the mischief arched in his eyes. "And how am I supposed to take the spy?"

"Any way you want." Her voice was carefully cool; it was intended as a flippant reply, nothing more.

But he stood then, every movement made as if he had all the time in the world to savour. Yet it was the move of a predator, idling over some interesting plaything. Her – a plaything!

He was in front of her suddenly; so fast that she had neither seen nor felt him move. His power roared before her – he had been holding back, all that time, hiding his true capability from her – and it was more than ever her own would be. It ripped about her senses like a hurricane, twisting and tearing.

His jade eyes were still laughing, still young as if the years were only a cloak he wore as he wished.

And then Bhari knew she could quite easily be his plaything, if he willed it so. There would be no choice in the matter.

She waited, a trembling begun deep inside her. All her life, she had been untouchable, her power the bedrock beneath her. Until now. But this wasn't fear. It was...

Anticipation.

"How exciting," he had murmured, and lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. The look in his eyes, she knew too well; the deep, disquieting hunger of desire. "You aren't at all what I expected."

"No?" She was the seductress then, tilting that head just a fraction to let him see the tantalizing line of her collarbones, moving her body so the light caught along the line of it to paint her in curving gold. "Do tell."

"Now that is what I expected," he said and drew back, his power fading about her.

Bhari was baffled. She had seen that craving, felt the thrill of mutual attraction.

Still there.

"It would be easy to let you tempt me, Bhari," he said very softly, with the barest huskiness on her name. "I remember all too well when you had another name, and men fell like rain at your feet. I only saw you once – but you haunted my dreams with that smile, and the way you shone in a barren land. But I remember too why they called you Deceiver, and why they named you Destroyer. I think I will resist temptation, and keep my homeland from your clutches."

"Hael..." She had begun, hardly believing the change of atmosphere. She had had him, right there...

"Find your way to my brother by evenfall," he advised. "Or he will be finding his way to you with an army."

And in the end, after that extraordinary first meeting, she had. She had bargained for an alliance, and bargained for Hael to walk beside her in the treacherous years to come. At the time, she had dreamed of how it would be among the five of them – how wonderful it would be, how at last she would find the gaps within her soul filled and fitted.

Childish dreams, yet even in the worst of the war, she had clung to them reverently and wished them real.

"Get a grip on yourself, or I may get one on your throat."

The words were lazy, wry and dropped like claws tapping on her skin. One by one, the threat, the humour sank in and inched her from that dead past into this living present.

Ryars Valley, where they were only fables.

His hands were hard on her arm, the nails digging deep enough to draw blood. She was caressed by his silky voice, carried on the chilly air.

And in his gushing green stare, there was that easy, impish laughter, and it lit her with a warmth that was new, and startling . Only now did she realise how cold she had been.

It was truly Hael.

Only now did she realise that she had loved him.

"On my throat?" Bhari arched her eyebrows, and let the barest hints of passion lace her voice. "_That_ is not where you usually lay your hands."

His laugh rippled like smoke into the air, as he had always been smoke in her hands. "Is it not? How careless of me."

That humour, with the same light nip as his teeth on her neck, how she had missed it. It woke the pain too, recollections of those days fallen like leaves, crushed to dust when he was not there. When he was no longer hers. She only breathed in deep; he was here now, he was hers again and that was enough.

"Ryar..." The moan was Fireblade, and Bhari turned to see him sag to his knees. The fires were quenched, and Ryar's return had driven nails into his soul. Fireblade broken, and it only saddened her.

Once, it would have delighted her to see that self-styled fire god humbled. Rage had made her petty, and pain had made her cruel in the Burning Days, but those things were gone now. All that she had detested in the old world was gone, long flown on the wind.

All that she wanted was here.

He that she wanted with the heat in her hands and the wanton glide of her body and the turmoil of her soul. Hael, and the other two who knew every thought in her mind, every idea that skimmed her perception, however they had disagreed.

"Ryar," the fire Drax whispered again.

Fireblade crawled to her, on his hands and his knees like a beggar in the dust, and the look on his face was beyond what Bhari could stand to see. His soul was naked then, stripped of every disguise, every mask and lie that kept love hidden, and hatred veiled.

Willow-slender, Ryar stared, all star-shining skin except for the wondering eyes that watched only Fireblade. The fallen god, and the risen worshipper. She stared, and then she reached out a trembling hand.

Her fingertips brushed the tiger's hair. And she drew back her hand.

"You're real," she breathed. The words chimed like a prayer in the arching chapel of the sky. "I'm real."

Fireblade tilted his head up to her, captured her hand so tightly it had to have hurt. He shook before her.

"I'm alive." She snatched her hand back; it was trembling. Fear exploded in her eyes like wounds, draining into the night with terrible certainty. Her voice was a howl, ripping apart the air. "What have you done?"

She looked wildly from face to face, lily-pale.

"_What have you done?_"

X - X - X - X - X

He opened his eyes onto a frozen swirl of colours, and a headache worthy of a barrel of vodka. Jepar Jubatus lay as still as he could, swallowing back nausea. How hard had Blue hit him?

The smell of blood told him it was serious, as did the high buzzing in his ears. Lucky it hadn't been silver Blue had hit him with; he'd be dead now.

As it was, he felt pretty close. There was nothing to do but stare up at the ceiling in this strange chamber, and wait until he was healed enough to go and snap Blue Malefici's vicious spine.

The ceiling...

He knew the tunnels underneath Ryars Valley had been built by Fireblade, and that supposedly the dragon had lived here once, but he'd never believed.

Yet the etchings above him stood out stark and true. He saw now the truth of the legend.

It was hard to see how the mural had been made; paint would not have lasted through the years, and there was a curious glittering grittiness to it. But finally, his eyes made sense of the patterns; those were gemstones set and gleaming in their thousands – no, millions even.

It was divided into sections, rather like a story board. The first was clear; Fireblade with a hand resting casually upon the furred shoulder of the cheetah that lay at his feet. Like a ghostly reminder, he heard his sister's voice murmuring in his ears clearly as if she stood beside him.

"Whatever the stories say, the truth is that we began as slaves. In the dragon times, the world was only a bauble for them to bat at like a kitten playing. They were carefree, and powerful. The combination is always dangerous, and never more so in the three who tore the world apart."

The woman in the next panel he knew; Bhari had given Alisha her dragon powers and her face was unchanged. There was a coy tilt to her black eyes, and more grace than the stilted lines gave her. Fireblade stood there too, head held high. The one in the middle could only be Kheo, the crownless king, who chose to destroy what he ruled.

"There were two others, though the stories speak less of them. Hael is the great mystery; he is almost never mentioned, yet when he is, the chronicles are curiously neutral about him. Our own records speak of him as...kind. Yes, kind is the right word."

The next panel was clearly the midst of the war; bones and ashes lay heaped at the feet of the five who stood there, while lightning, pearly white, danced behind them. Bhari's face was a feral snarl, held back by the man next to her. If he was Hael, he appeared to be holding her back with one hand, while green swirls streaked from the other.

"Ryar, of course, we all know of. Leader of the rebels, who urged her people to stand and fight. Legend speaks of her as an avenging angel, fierce as the man she loved and lost. Legend is also entirely wrong. Most of the stories of Ryar and Fireblade were written long afterwards – apparently it was a taboo subject for many, many centuries. We, however, have an early version written by one of our ancestors. Ryar ap Sangager was a woman all thought cowed into submission, destroyed utterly by Fireblade's cruelty. To the last, she was afraid of him, yet to the last she defied him. In her own way, she is as mysterious as Hael."

Kheo blazed in diamonds and sapphires; cut only in blue and white, he seemed an alien being landed amongst them all, filled with power to the brim. Fireblade was to one side, clutching two tiny figures in his hands like dolls, though Jepar suspected they were witches, while at his feet lay a woman with turquoise tears on her face.

"The Five had a unique bond." Gatajri's voice echoed inside his mind, more mature now – a conversation from years later, when she had grown into the distant woman who had seemed less family and more a work colleague. "Ryar's betrayal snapped it. It was an odd thing, this combining of their powers. It created something almost like a soulmate link between them. Every piece of evidence I have found says it only occurred when they were together, and it allowed them to reach beyond the physical and the tangible. It allowed them to destroy the soulmate bonds that existed at that time, and to create new bonds between those who should never have been together."

In the last panel, Ryar stood alone, the sky black marble, hands raised in a gesture of defiance. Animals of every kind thronged her. A halo glimmered in tarnished gold about her.

"They came close to annihilating us all. One man's pride nearly broke us – and one woman's decision saved us. For his pride, we are lowest of the low in our own world – and for her decision, we accept it with grace. We are the oldest of all the Nightpeople, and we are the strongest. In the end, we proved strong."

He lay there long minutes while his bones creaked and healed, and at the edges of his returning senses, he felt a stirring in the world. A change.

He knew that swirl of energy; he had felt it before, with Alisha. And just the other night, when Chatoya took her powers. Dragons there, lots of dragons, Blue there...Toya there!

Regardless of his frail body, Jepar leapt to his feet, swaying as pain slammed his head like vicious nails. No, no, he didn't have time to be unconscious...blasted Blue...

His vision was greying out. Oh, this was not good.

With the last of his power, Jepar threw all his thoughts at the mind he still hoped was there. _Toya's in trouble – dragons... Fireblade and Blue – stop them, Lisa, stop them!_

With a leaden moan, he slumped inelegantly back to the floor, not to awaken until it was all long over.

X - X - X - X - X

Crack.

The side of his face was numb now from where she had hit him again and again. Sandrine held nothing back; each punch was a heavy slam, and it felt as though she was slowly knocking his wits away. Not that there had been many to start with; if he'd been a little less impulsive, he wouldn't be here. Damn it, damn him, damn them all

"Who were you talking to?" The cold, dead words made him ache deep inside.

He was so tired now – tired of the hurt, the regret, the rage.

"Who?" she demanded. Slap, and all Cougar Redfern wanted was to lay his head down, and close his eyes forever.

He'd thought all the rage in him would never burn out, that it was steady as the sun. Angry, and lonely, and lost. He could live with being lonely and lost because anger had kept him warm, but even that was seeping away from him.

Strong fingers gripped his chin, and smeared blood away from his face. He recalled times when they had been caring, the touch of someone more than a friend.

Sandrine was so close he could feel her humid breath, the only heat in this dank vault. "Was it that blond boy?"

"Does it matter?" he answered wearily.

Pain ripped through his side, and he screamed soundlessly. She had torn out the stakes that had held him pinioned, and saw-toothed sensations scraped at his body. Cougar hung, gasping for air that didn't seem to be there.

The scrape of metal on metal reached him dimly, a neat, tight click. Suddenly one arm was free, and before he could react at all, she had unlocked the other chains and he was in a curled, shaking heap on the floor, wrapping himself up around his wounds. He would have run if he'd been able, but his muscles felt like over-stretched elastic, and the stone floor seemed enough of a bed right now; he just had to shut his eyes-

She kicked him in the ribs.

"I don't think so – but then, I'm not the one calling the shots." Her hands pulling at him, dragging him up. She was much, much stronger than he had realised, wrenching him upright however hard his shoulders shrieked in protest. "Anybody else?"

And then she brushed her knuckles over his cheek. It was an old, fond gesture and it brought back so many of the moments he wanted to bury in his heart. This girl and her long, soft throat, the fairytales with their ever pleasant endings that had fascinated a fourteen year old who'd never really understood happiness until he saw it in her, and the one chaste kiss – his first – that they had shared.

But that girl was gone. All those old loyalties – mouldering bones in a shallow grave.

"No one," he said dully. His one final piece of defiance. "No one at all."

X - X - X - X - X

Another jugful of water – and the ice-cubes in it - crashed onto Lance's face and he promptly inhaled a good half-pint of bitingly cold liquid. His limbs felt dull, though his mind was racing.

"Shit, we're out of water," said a voice he knew as Lance struggled back into the waking world.

"Try this," someone else advised. "It was in the fridge. If that doesn't work, I can turn the toaster into a defibrillator..."

"Yeah. That'll be smart when he's covered with water." Vaje, he thought with a chime of recognition. "Oh, give me that. If he is having a laugh, he won't do it again."

Do what-

Two litres of pancake batter hit him, just as Lance got control of his motor functions.

Blind and spluttering, he sat bolt-upright to grab the throat of whoever was nearest. When he'd blinked away the mixture, he was holding a furious Ross, who was going an unsightly shade of red.

"I think he's feeling better," remarked Vaje, who had the sense to get out the way. Lance, oozing batter, took a moment to send a venomous glare his way before he let go of Ross. "Guess you weren't faking."

"Faking what, exactly? Being dead? I don't get my kicks that way."

"We all know how you get your damn kicks," muttered Vaje with that bloody irritating roll of his eyes. "Two at a time usually."

"Three's a crowd," he flicked back. "I like crowds. And if I'm right, we're going to head for a big, fanged crowd very soon, down at the lake."

Ross glanced over with bright, alert eyes, rubbing his neck. Bright and alert. Lance would normally have applied those words to a dead gloworm before Ross. "First news – you were right, Lance, Malefici does know the legend of the Drax. So do you know what's going on?"

"Let's see...four Drax. Fireblade – here, alive. Fire. Chatoya Irkil – somehow got hold of Earth. Ryar ap Sangager – Water, and newly resurrected. We've got trouble, kids."

Vaje was wearing his best slack-jawed yokel expression.

"That's three. What about...?" The shapeshifter had an expression on his face that said he could probably guess the answer, but it was just too awful to voice.

"Air. The last one. Malefici."

There was a thump as Vaje's forehead hit the table. "We're screwed," the coyote groaned. "Oh god, the one guy you don't want to have world-destroying supreme power, and it's just handed to him on a big platter like a pile of Ferrero Roche. Does anybody else feel an apocalypse coming on?"

"We can at least go out fighting," Lance announced. "If we can take out one of them..."

"Not so fast," said Ross, grinning. He looked so cute, Lance's sister would have been bouncing him on her knee.

"What can you find to grin about?" demanded Vaje.

"Power has a price."

It was the first teaching of Pursang. "We know that," Lance snapped. "And?"

"And the power that the Four summoned had a very high price. Very high. For them to use their powers alone – nothing. For them to combine their powers between two – again, nothing. But for four of them to meld their powers into one required...sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?" he echoed uselessly.

Ross's sweet smile flashed like a firework, but what lay in his eyes was cooler, and shrewd. "A sacrifice for each of them. Four bodies – preferably witches, as the power in their blood acted as a catalyst."

Ryar had sacrificed people? The thought whirled past in Lance's mind, painted in bleak horror, but he pushed it aside. Worry about that later.

"Did it take long?"

"The old scrolls say a short time. But you know how victims can be. They just scream and kick and bite, and won't go to a nice, quiet death."

"Oh, absolutely. How inconvenient." Vaje was leaning away from Ross. "You'd think they'd be queuing up, wouldn't you?"

"That was sarcasm, wasn't it?" The short vampire's mouth had taken on a decidedly petulant glance. "You know, Vaje, I've always thought your heart really wasn't into the job. You're so...merciful."

"Anyway," cut in Lance with what he hoped was a commanding stare, before this got into another petty, murderous discussion that ended up with blood all over the floor. "What you're saying is that there's time."

"There's time," confirmed Ross. "You bring weapons?"

"Not for this," Vaje said. "Just a few bits."

"We'll have to improvise," declared Lance. He gestured to the house. "We're good at that."

"I call the electric drill," was Ross's contribution as the short vampire positively bounded out of the room.

Vaje slanted an amused look at the Australian, and he was glad to see the despair had faded from his eyes. The way the coyote cracked his knuckles meant business. Just like the good times. "You sure you want him sober all the time?"

"And the cleaver..." The vampire's voice drifted down from the hallway.

He sighed. Every silver lining had a cloud. "I can live with it. And if we're lucky, we'll be living with it after tonight."

There was time. Time to kill.

_No more feeling so useless,  
Can I beg for one more, she said  
Taking with arms wide open, longing for sleep again  
But now I'm awake_


	37. Chapter Thirty Six

Lyrics taken from _Hero_ by Chad Kroeger.

**Chimera Part Thirty Six**

_I am so high, I can hear heaven._

In answer, Bhari only laughed. Laughed until she thought her sides would rupture, and her body leak out onto the ground. "What have we done?" she said, flinging out her hands with abandon. "We have remade the world as it should have been – we have set you free."

Ryar was silent, but Bhari scarcely noticed.

"Here we are again," she cried out to the world. Oh, how it would be, how exquisite and how thrilling. The four of them, exploring this unsullied, untouched world together; discovering the paths they once walked, and one another with it.

"Here we are," came Ryar's voice. She stood straight now, the violet eyes steadfast, but oddly sad. "And here I, at least, should not be."

"No." Fireblade, simple adoration etched on his face. "I was wrong. You were never meant to die-"

"To cease upon the midnight with no pain," quoted Hael mildly. "Though there was pain, wasn't there, Ryar?"

Her face was solemn. "The war brought only pain, boy. Whoever you are."

"He is Hael," Bhari said, irritated. "Did you lose your sight as well as your fear?"

A quiver to that camellia skin – so Ryar was still afraid. "I lost neither. And he is no more Hael than you are Bhari, whatever you believe. If you don't believe me, look! Look, and this time, do not turn your eyes away from the truth."

She looked. She looked at the face of her old love, and saw only what she had seen thirty thousand years ago. The same laughing eyes, the same crooked smile. Nothing different. What truth was there other than Hael returned to her? She looked no further. There was nothing else that mattered.

"The war was right." But Bhari heard her own unease, worse, felt it bite with firm teeth into her heart.

"Strange how war becomes more right the less likely you are to die." The Water Drax turned away sharply, one hand rising to her face. "Or did you truly not care, Bhari? Did the bodies matter nothing to you?"

When Hael was lost, nothing at all seemed to matter, she wanted to cry. But she held her tongue. He was returned to her now, and there was intimacy in his words to her, and that half-forgotten flickering, threatening humour. Half-forgotten.

She had had to forget him. It was the only way she could survive.

Bhari had never thought she needed him; she walked alone, strong and tall and proud. Only when he was gone did she taste the bitterness and isolation of her life.

"I...don't know," she said slowly, drawing herself back from the sting of those memories. "Sometimes they did. Does it matter, Ryar? It's done, it's gone – you can't bring back the dead-"

But of course, you could. Her words faded under stammers, and Bhari could only stare at this woman she had thought so weak. Who, in the end, had been the strongest of them all.

"We should all be gone." Ryar's words were pitying, implacable as the rain. "Bhari – my dearest, you died long ago. All you are is a few shreds of memory wrapped up in power."

Hael's voice scythed across the night, and it was meant to cut at Ryar. "Leave it, siren."

It was all going so wrong. It was meant to be joyful – it was meant to be a new start, a new world. But the animosity crept into the air piece by piece; Fireblade's flames were quenched, and Ryar stood with defiance in her relaxed shoulders and upheld chin, and something of Hael's easiness had iced over.

And Bhari thought she felt new emotions creeping into her, slow as plants taking root. Only flickers, but when she looked at Hael, she seemed to see another face laid over his, one that was cold and indomitable, the face of a prince, chilled under the everlasting night.

"No!" Ryar stepped forward. "I 'left it' in the Burning Days, and my indecision butchered more people than I can even count. We cannot live in the past. I have lived there so long now...and it has brought me to this. She is not Bhari – of all people, you should know that."

"What do you mean?" asked Bhari, incredibly confused.

"Whoever you are underneath – I know you're there, I can feel you – is bound to him. It's her eyes you see through, and her voice you speak with. Bhari is just a ghost."

The fingers that tipped up her chin were firm; she could not drop her eyes to hide her fear.

"You will never be just anything, witch of mine," Hael purred with cool certainty.

Bhari looked up into the eyes that were the olive, swelling green of rivers. In them, she saw something new – and unnerving – begin, a slight, daggered gleam.

"I am no witch."

The laughter curled up and around her, scrumptious and black as the shadows that their bodies threw. "No? Then how have you enchanted me? How have you made me want you so?"

Boldness in the way she stepped back from his touch, and in the deliberate sway of her hips. Old, slinky motions, old enticements that felt simply right. Yes, she was only Bhari. "The wanting is all your own."

That unsettling glitter in his eyes grew, or was it only that he had come close to her again, to rest his hands on her waist with unexpected possessiveness.

It was like a lightning seed, spinning slow, spinning quick, and as it turned, it kicked off sparks that moved to settle at the outside of his iris. The green was subsumed, and only that amazing, unbearable colour lay there.

Blue as the morning flooding over the sky in one supple, blinding wash.

Blue as the ocean, ready to drag her in and tumble her through its riptides until she was nestled forever at its breast.

Blue as a broken heart.

Bhari stared at him, at the face that was so, so familiar – and yet with that simple change, somehow so much altered. His skin was whiter than anyone she had ever seen, and she wondered if the sun even touched him, or if he walked in some perpetual darkness, but...

But whatever he might be, he was beautiful and dangerous, and she was drawn to the disrespectful slant of his smile, and the subtlety that had been Hael's too. She knew – she knew with a sudden unpleasant jolt – that he too was familiar.

And he was hers.

"Is it now, witch of mine?" he asked, and his face was a little amused, but mostly it was shrewd and expectant. "Do you honestly think you know anything of what I want?"

A memory burst in her head like a flower, unfolding into vibrant grandeur. His arms about her in a dark, empty night when emerald eyes had chased her through dreams and this cold, gifted creature had been her sanctuary. The prickle of his breath on her lips, and the unexpectedness tightness of his arms – he had held her tight, yet he had been refuge, not a cage.

"Yes," she said slowly, comprehending in one instant what had lain unseen for years. "Yes, I do."

I know what you want: I have read your heart like scripture, I have caught your soul in my hand.

"But do you know what I want?"

"For everything to be as it was," he answered, and there was a dry, icy scorn chopping the words. "For all the past to be undone, and the scars to scrub off like dirt – for the tears to be forgotten, and all those people you broke to be whole. How can you still believe that? Do you really think it can be as it was?"

He wanted her to remember. Bhari couldn't have said how she knew it, yet she did. This was not Hael, and slowly, she was finding she was not entirely as she had been.

The answer flashed in her head. He wanted her to forget who she truly was. Bhari was controllable, but the other one, the witch who was called-

Who was...

He kissed her then, just a light, teasing touch of lips on lips, but it washed the intrusive thought clean from her head. Ridiculous – she was Bhari, no one else. He stepped back to flash her that quirky, who-me smile.

"Oh no, bane of my heart," she answered, and knew with a secret wonderment that the endearment was right – oh, it was exactly right.

"No?"

She reached across with one languid, snaking movement.

"No," she said and drew his him to her with tender hands. "It can be better."

His smile set her heart afire. This time, there would be no need for war to make her feel alive.

Only him.

"It will be," he said. "I promise you, witch of mine – it will be."

But the words sent a jagged dread down her, for reasons she couldn't fathom.

"I always keep my promises."

X - X - X - X - X

They came through the night like wolves running through snow, kicking up dust in their wake. Leaving trails on the world they weren't even aware of; the three of them, the world's most unlikely musketeers.

Judged to perfection, Blue Malefici thought, with just the scantest hint of satisfaction.

Combining the Drax's powers would need sacrifices; and the more powerful the sacrifice, the smoother the meld. Vampires and shapeshifters were victims to be desired, but capturing four such powerful creatures would be so – wasteful.

Instead, they were running right to him.

Ross. Lance. Vaje. Three of the most powerful Nightpeople in the world. Such ideal – such suitable – sacrifices. The absence of a fourth had been irritating, but he had set Sandrine to deal with that.

Four victims.

Just one, personal apocalypse.

And in a rare moment of abandon, he gathered his witch close in his arms and breathed in the soft scent that was all her own. A mix of soap and herbs, and the warm spice of her skin. He breathed her in like incense.

The green eyes were too hard; without Chatoya Irkil's graceless naivety, some of the charm of her face was gone. Bhari's effortless confidence made her more beautiful. It was there in the easy way she twined her arm around his neck, tangled it in his hair.

That touch was sure, and deliberate, and skilled in a way his witch was not.

And as she turned to smile at him so lazily, with that smile that said: I know I am beautiful. I know I am powerful. I know you want me. And I know you know all this too. There was none of his witch's futile anger, or careless words in that.

And how odd.

He didn't like it at all.

Blue breathed out slowly, and let her go. He remembered a promise he had made what seemed like eons ago, in a milder world.

Judged to perfection. If perfection exists in an imperfect world.

X - X - X - X - X

Lisa Ochai crept closer, barely breathing. The mists were choking, like breathing in scented smog.

Jepar's shout bounced about her mind. Dragons, he'd said – plural.

She was afraid. At least she would admit that, and then perhaps it would be easier to deal with this icy sensation that wound its way about her veins like cancer, poisoning her best intentions.

She sent her thoughts forward, winding through the fog of magic. The world seemed clogged tonight, as if every restless spirit and otherworldly being in Ryars Valley had been drawn here.

At the centre of it all were four towering infernos. They were painful to sense; for the first time in her life, Lisa saw how people had lain down and worshipped them as gods.

Vast and blinding and beautiful, they were a dizzying combination of feelings. The crash of a thousand angels screaming prayers on high, the flickering light of fire miles wide, the tearing force of a hurricane ripping the world from its roots. Whatever they were, they were monstrous as they were wondrous, and she knew she would never be anything but dust to them.

Lisa Ochai, who had lived one and a half thousand years, was reduced to a child before them.

She crawled through the mist on hands and knees, and didn't kid herself that it was to hide. They wouldn't even notice her, this speck in their blazing existence. It was because she was too afraid to walk among such glorious, horrific creatures.

God, what must it have been like to be human in the Burning Days, when the world was filled with creatures like this?

She couldn't let this overwhelm her. Toya was there somewhere, in amidst those dazzling dragons. She had to find her, and rescue her. Lisa shut her mind off from the dragon quartet; that way, she could feel she still had some control.

Voices began to filter to her, strange and loud and confident. And – dear god – voices she knew.

Toya?

X - X - X - X - X

"Why did you do it?" Ryar moved forward, and the way she moved was utterly unearthly. She seemed more of a shimmer through the air than anything, liquid moonlight flowing on the earth.

"Because I love you." Fireblade's voice was throaty with pain. "Because you should never have died."

"But I did," she answered, and a momentary tenderness was in those words. "My heart, I did die. You killed me. Why didn't you let me rest?"

"Well," cut in Hael. "Correct me if I'm wrong, siren, but you weren't exactly at peace."

"How do you know that?"

The moonlight turned his skin to ivory, white as Ryar's own. But where she was the pale lushness of lilies and roses, he was the white of marble, of ice. They seemed alike, but Bhari dismissed it as pure fancy.

"Ask the mer, Ryar," he answered coolly. "They remember what you made, when you were desperate enough. When you were afraid enough. They remember the 'last hope' that you sent across the ocean. What's wrong, Sangager's siren? Don't you like the face of hope?"

Not understanding, Bhari could only watch as Ryar's hands spasmed, her face grew drawn.

"Must all my mistakes return to haunt me?" the Drax whispered, not looking at Hael.

"Not all." Was that a ring of triumph in Hael's voice? "You can remedy one, at least."

All three of them turned to look at him, even Fireblade on his knees with his shoulders slumped. And Bhari felt the tremor rise up in her; she knew what he would say. She knew it in a way she couldn't explain.

"The war was lost when we were divided," he stated simply. "Apart, we were always less than we were together."

"Together we only destroyed." Ryar shook her head once, twice.

He only half-smiled, and the edges and angles of his faces were alleviated.

"We chose to destroy," he answered. "Do you think that is all we can do? Look around you, Ryar – look at this place. This is what was made; these waters are your tribute. All this, created by one man. With all of us, think what the world could become..."

The images grew like clouds in Bhari's mind, swirling and spinning to ever greater heights. Trees exploding from the ground; rivers springing from beneath their feet. War quelled with the push and pull of the elements. It was utopia, formed in the idyll of their union. Four as One, and that One greater than the Four alone. It was heaven.

It was a lie.

Bhari didn't know where that thought had come from. How could something so wonderful be a lie?

"I have seen what the world became beneath our hands." There was strength in Ryar's voice, and she met Hael's glare. "Ashes, boy. Only ashes."

"Then let us be the phoenix." Above him, lightning danced across the sky in fantastic, jagged patterns. More and more and more until the whole sky seemed countless fractured shards. "For thirty thousand years, in your hearts of hearts, you longed for rebirth."

The lightning was massing into one tight, blinding knot that even they had to shield their eyes from.

And then it struck.

It smashed down the sky like a spear, and Hael was lit in furious brilliance. He seemed alight, and Bhari actually reached for him with a cry stifled in her throat-

It was gone, in a blink. He stood before them, untouched, unaffected. "Here is your chance."

It had caught them. That vision of bliss; Bhari realised that perhaps she had not been the only one longing for a new start, longing to turn back the clock. Maybe they all had. Maybe the war had changed them all. In Ryar's eyes, she saw an almost feverish look.

"So many wrongs," murmured Hael, his voice persuasive and insidious.

Look at his soul, not his eyes! a voice inside her cried. He can lie with his eyes, but he cannot lie to you...

"The monsters we made – we can cure that. We made the shapeshifters; they drink from the source of our power. We can stem that source, and return their humanity to them."

"The children..." breathed Ryar cryptically. Hael seemed to understand her words, though.

"Yes – their descendants can be healed of what you did. You can atone, Ryar. The dead can walk again, peace brought to those who had none. Curses lifted. All that was wrong – changed."

How wide and wondering Ryar's eyes were, her face soft and startled. All the years of the war had not erased her naivety – her need to make some amend. "Yes..." she said. "But not with sacrifice. Not any longer."

"Yes," echoed Fireblade. The fiery eyes burned brighter now, and met Hael's with acquiescence. "As we agreed. Whatever it takes."

"So we did," said Hael amiably. "And you, Bhari?"

No!

She ignored the strange, crazy voice, walking away from them all as if she needed to think. She spun back, a challenge in her eyes.

"And after?"

"And after..." The promise was wanton and heavy in his eyes, a drowning azure. "It shall be us alone. And what was promised shall be."

"I am agreed," she said softly. "Bane of my heart, I am all yours."

"Then let it begin here," he declared. "Let it start now. With us."

He held out his hand, a purely symbolic gesture, and Bhari felt his power flare up and out of his body. A flickering, dark light, it flowed across his eyes like spilt oil. Blue was replaced by a river of black, waters of the Lethe, hell's oceans.

She took his hand.

It seemed lightning bolts leapt between them, snaking under her skin with delicious warmth. She didn't recall that happening before. And she never recalled her power so eager to leap out and meld with his.

Dragonfire echoed around her like a bass drum, heavy and throbbing yet incomplete. Her own power thrashed under her control and this time, she released it.

The earth rocked under her feet, and she was aware of every inch of it. Every rock and pebble at her reach; if she wanted, she could rip an abyss beneath them and tumble them all into darkness. Trees and creepers and flowers were a different kind of strength, a slow, insidious type. She knew every strata of stone; her world was cushioned by them, steady and solid.

Only Hael was a disturbance in it all, an open archway from her room of earth. She could reach out and take his power now, if she wished, and fling up huge storms of dust, whip earth into shape with the currents of the air.

She was almost drunk on the possibilities.

I'd forgotten how wonderful it was. I'd forgotten it all...

His voice was the breath of a god, and it brought a thousand memories with it. _I know._

I missed you, she told him. I missed you so much. Everything you were. Everything we were.

He drew her closer, his arms sliding about her waist in a strangely impersonal gesture. Hael had never been impersonal; with him, every touch mattered. He had loved to be touched, she knew that, and to touch; loved to toy with her jewellery and stroke her skin, and breathe in the scent of her hair.

That's because this isn't Hael.

The odd, annoying voice sounded almost impatient.

Shut up, Bhari told it firmly.

Excuse me? Shut up? Which one of us actually owns this body? Which one of us happens to be destined for the soulless killer you're cuddling up to? Are you completely blind – look at him! Does he look like someone you'd trust your dog with over the weekend, never mind your entire existence?

Then the unsettling thing happened.

For a moment, Bhari's senses lurched and she had the horrible impression someone was shoving her – at her! – trying to dislodge her. She actually felt as if she rose; for a moment, she was blind, her vision snatched away-

Hael's power blasted through her like a blast of arctic wind, and the thing was gone. Whatever it had been.

_Be more careful,_ he advised coolly. _There are all kinds of edgy spirits around. Magic draws them._

Yes. A restless spirit. Of course.

"Ryar," Hael said aloud. It wasn't a request.

Bhari had to focus on the real world. The Water Drax moved in that lovely fluid way, and took the hand Hael held to her.

Her power was cool, effortless as a flood but less than it once had been. It poured over Bhari in a green and grey mass, carving another doorway into her stone room, a gate to Ryar's soul. There was hesitation here, too many memories of misery. But as water met air and earth, that pain was soothed.

I missed even you, thought Bhari, surprised. Yes, she had missed Ryar's delicacy, her sweetness that pattered through the connection like summer rain.

The Water Drax sighed wistfully. "I missed you too," she answered. "Even your awful temper."

Bhari smiled; Ryar was remembering the time when the Earth Drax had kicked some pious little courtesan in the shin because he was talking over Ryar, and then tipped her drink all over his bald head.

"Just me now." Fireblade stood, his hungry eyes settling on Ryar. In the connection, a whirl of feelings leapt. Fear and anticipation and wonder and sorrow. Other things too; too many to grasp.

Energy crackled up around him in a blaze of orange and yellow before it began to change, as all their powers did. It darkened, into a smouldering black, and leapt towards them.

And stopped.

He was outside the three of them, unable to break into the link. Again and again, his power smashed at theirs, trying to meld, unable to. It was as if he reached across a chasm to them, never quite able to reach.

They had never done this without sacrifice. They had never known it couldn't be done. She knew the theory; that blood contained all four elements and acted as both a gateway and a catalyst. Never had she dreamed it was true; she had simply enjoyed the ritual and the slaughter.

"It can't be done," Bhari said aloud. "We need blood."

"No!" Ryar, tearing her hand away, though her power remained joined. "Keep trying. We've just never tried it before, that's all."

"I'm afraid that would be entirely futile," purred Hael. An amused smile curved up his mouth, the moonlight putting a shimmering sheen upon it. "We are born in blood, siren, and we die in blood – and we live in it too."

"No!" Ryar pointed a shaking finger at him. "I will never be party to murder again."

"And besides," put in Fireblade, sounding more like his old self – if a frustrated one, "where exactly are we to find four sacrifices? Are they going to just run into our arms?"

Hael's chuckle was gentle and sinful. "Funny you should say that."

"Is it?" The low grate of Fireblade's was a warning. Bhari recognised the signs of his fraying temper, even more furious than her own. "I find little to laugh about."

"You'll have less in a minute," a new voice said.

And out of the mists stepped three heavily armed men.

X - X - X - X - X

Lisa froze.

She was close enough now to make out the silhouettes of their figures. She knew Toya's easily, even if she didn't like the slinky way she was moving. And Blue's too; she'd recognise that proud stance anywhere.

The graceful, quiet one was Ryar. The other – humbled, yet now bristling with anger, Fireblade.

And they had been arguing. Combining their powers, only it wasn't working. That could only be good.

Next they had started talking about sacrifices, and Lisa had backed into the mists a little more. She wasn't going to assume they were ignorant of her presence. Not when Blue was there. She knew better.

Then from nowhere, feet had thundered past her in, so close she felt the air stir in their passing. The clink and clatter of metal, mingled with the absolute hush of Nightpeople stalking. And the voice had spoken.

The husky, rough voice.

Vaje's voice.

And others: "Evening. I never thought I'd say this, but we're here to do some good."

A light, Australian lilt. She could imagine the icy gleam to Lance's sea-green eyes right now. He'd drawn something, some kind of weapon that looked suspiciously like her curling iron.

She felt insanely like giggling. This could not be happening. It was crazy.

Pause, then Blue's incredulous voice came up out of the darkness like the devil in a cloud of smoke. "What exactly are you planning to do? Send us all to perm in hell?"

Fireblade sounded caught between laughing and growling. "Ross, Ross, please don't tell me that's an electric drill. I've heard of being bored to death, but you're just taking the mickey now."

"Go!" The panicked voice was Ryar. The other three were closing in on the assassins, circling them like starving wolves. "Don't be stupid, you can't fight them – run, now!"

"Sorry, lady." Oh god, Vaje, what are you doing? Lisa wanted to shout. You dumb idiot. "We can't let you start another war. Some of us are still suffering from the last one."

"And you think your..." That was Toya's voice, but Lisa knew something odd was going on. Blue was calling her Bhari – and she knew exactly who Bhari had been. "...your ladle is going to stop us."

Lisa crawled forward to hear Lance hiss, "I can't believe you brought the _ladle_, for crying out loud."

"It was a mistake," Vaje snarled. He was mere metres away, and she wanted to snatch him away from this – but then the skulking shape of Fireblade cut in front of her, and she realised that would be stupid. She would provide their fourth sacrifice. "I was aiming for the carving knife. And what about you, O Hairdresser of Doom?"

"I modified it," muttered Lance sulkily.

The three assassins were drawing back into a tight knot, weapons facing out as the dragons ringed them.

"Ready?" she heard Ross whisper, glee in his voice.

Soft affirmations from the other two.

They leapt-

And a roll of power like nothing Lisa had ever felt slammed them to the ground. The dragons never even dirtied their hands; the three mercenaries were pinioned, flat on their backs against the earth.

Oh god, Lisa thought. Oh god, it was that easy. I should go – what if they know I'm here, and they make me their fourth?

No. I can't leave Vaje. I can't leave Toya. Whatever happens, I must stay. If only I can bring Toya back – somehow. But how?

She knew a little about possession. A very little. The invader could be shocked out, if they could be distracted enough. If she could help Toya – distract Bhari somehow. What would draw Bhari's attention away – what mattered most to her?

Hael. But that was Blue, ever on his guard. If he was careless for one beat...yes. That was all it needed.

She waited. And wondered what on earth could make Blue Malefici careless.

X - X - X - X - X

Bhari eyed the intruders coldly. Strong, but so very easy to subdue. They looked familiar, though she knew she had never seen any of them before. All three glared at her and Hael like they were ogres. Idiots.

"I can't help but notice we're one short," commented Fireblade dryly. "Those three are powerful – they'll work well, Malefici. But three isn't enough."

"He's Hael," Bhari snapped out. "What is wrong with you, Fireblade?"

"What's wrong with all of _you_?" Ryar was pale, her stare fixed upon one of the victims. The blond one, who kicked uselessly at the bands of granite Bhari had slung over their limbs. "I will not sacrifice anyone! You can forget this, boy. I will not be party to your – your mad little plan."

"Won't you?" murmured Hael. There was an icy threat in it.

Her eyes widened, and that old thrashing fear was there. " Hael, no, this is not what I intended."

"Really?" he said, so coolly amused. "Same old lies, siren, same old song."

Ryar shook her head violently. "I won't! Not any more – not ever agai-"

Hael's power lashed like a barbed whip, and Ryar fell, crumpling to a pile on her knees. The sheet of silver hair shielded her face, but nothing stifled her cry.

"You'll do what I want."

There was a clean, hard line to his face – a cruelty Hael had never possessed. Who are you? thought Bhari, both afraid and impressed. Maybe Ryar was right; you are not my Hael...yet somehow, you're mine.

Fireblade had cradled his wife in his arms, stroking her with gentle hands. But there was fire in the eyes lifted to Hael. "You'll leave her alone, Malefici. She's forgotten, that's all...she's forgotten what we are."

"No!" Ryar pushed at her husband. He wouldn't let go. "I haven't forgotten- how could I forget? I won't let you do this, I-"

Fireblade's hands tightened until his knuckles were white and Ryar gaped. Not so gentle, after all. The pressure he was exerting must have been utter agony for her.

"This is the price, Ryar," he said tranquilly. "This is the price for us."

"Us?" she began, but the words were cut off.

Stop it, you idiot, Bhari wanted to say as the Fire Drax began to wrap his power about his wife, turning her protests to steam. You did this all those years ago, and look what happened – civil war, blood spilling blood, and only ruins left.

"It's a small price, sweet," murmured Fireblade so softly. Soft his words, and hard his grip on her – Bhari found herself wanting to look away. This was wrong. In Ryar's face, she saw the defiance crumbling, fear of her husband greater than anything else.

Maybe recalling his hands on her throat, and the fury in his eyes and the obsession that had dredged her from death. Despair quivered in that fragile countenance. A tiny whimper escaped her.

Ryar's defiance crumpled, and the boy with the extraordinary blue hair, so bright and fierce and sacred...

He smiled.

_But heaven, no, heaven don't hear me._


	38. Chapter Thirty Seven

Lyrics taken from _Only When I Lose Myself _by Depeche Mode (Album: Only When I Lose Myself)

**Chimera Part Thirty Seven**

_Did I need to place my heart in the palm of your hand  
Before I could even start to understand?_

This just isn't fair, thought Vaje Chusson furiously. Every muscle in his body bulged, straining to break the rock that had flowed over his wrists and ankles. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

There was supposed to be a chance to fight. One big, apparently hopeless battle. And even if you had picked up the damn ladle by mistake, your vastly superior enemy was supposed to have some small flaw, say, a full-frontal lobotomy.

_Well, that went well,_ muttered Lance morosely. He was still, routed. _Why do I have these smart ideas like let's go down fighting? Why don't I ever say let's leave the country now?_

_You did say that once,_ Vaje said, twisting his wrists only to shred his skin – but still, he'd felt the rock shift. _Remember? In Brisbane? Then we got on the plane, and nearly got spread across the landscape in very thin pate because that stewardess turned out to be one of Daybreak's blasted fanatics._

_Oh, yeah. Still, it was a bloody stupid idea. I mean – dragons? C'mon, mate, you know I'm not that dumb. We're assassins – we don't go rushing in like this. But then, I didn't think she was like them._

Vaje frowned. It was true. He was impulsive one, and Lance was the ice-cube cool thinker. And Ross was...was...well, high mostly. _You're right – we don't go rushing in. That is weird._

_Not really._ The new voice stung like bees, and Vaje had to crane his neck to see Blue wiggle his fingers at them in a little disdainful gesture. _You've all grown very lax at shielding those vacuous spaces you call minds. Frankly, I thought better of you, Stormshot. Chusson's always been the weak one._

Lance was ominously silent but his mind darkened until it was a setting sun in Vaje's senses. Ross, however, supplied words enough for all of them in one long streaming tirade.

_Hush now,_ chided Blue with cyanide amusement lacing his tones. _Just because you're going to be sacrificed for a higher cause...well, I lie, mostly you're going to be sacrificed for my benefit, but there's no need to be bitter._

Vaje let his head fall back with a thump. _You manipulated us?_

_Precisely._ Blue leaned over him. _By the way, Chusson...your girlfriend's out in the mist._

Vaje's heart iced over. _No...Malefici, don't you dare or I'll...I'll..._

_You'll co-operate,_ advised the lamia lazily. _I have no need of her. Of course, should there be any kind of...difficulty – well, I may have to offload some of my displeasure. Suddenly. Sadistically. Gorily._

Vaje glared back at him but kept silent. He understood. And idiot that he was, he'd behave. Even though he knew Malefici would probably hunt her down later anyway. He just couldn't bear to take that chance.

_She'll hear your death,_ continued Blue idly, tapping his foot on the granite chain. Likely able to break it with a step. _Though one has to wonder if it will touch her heart. After all, she's seen so much pain._

What are you on about, thought Vaje dazedly. She's a kid.

Blue kicked the stone manacle and it shattered into fragments. Before Vaje could even wrench his arm free to try pounding the sneaky son-of-a-bitch, it was replaced by another fetter, this one invisible. _She isn't,_ murmured the vampire. _Not that it makes any difference now, of course._

_Why are you doing this?_ Ross sounded more puzzled than upset at the fact he was about to become the entrée at a dragon banquet._ Bringing back the war isn't going to gain you anything. Lots of fun, but not a lot of profit._

Blue only rolled his eyes heavenward. _How naïve you all are._

"Well, where's the fourth?"

The strident voice belonged to Fireblade who was stood out of Vaje's eye-line. God, the coyote thought. I used to threaten my son with him. The big bad legend springing from fire and fear. And here he is.

Big and bad as hell.

Vaje redoubled his efforts to break his chains. Useless it might be, but he couldn't die easily.

The famous Redfern disdain oozed. "Have a little patience, Fireblade. Or if you can't be patient, at least be silent and spare us all your endless droning."

Fireblade roared with laughter. "That was Hael if ever I heard him!"

Was Malefici looking startled? Surely not.

Maybe he doesn't have as much control as he wants, Vaje reflected. Pulling all these strings; oh, he's good, he's good all right but I always heard tell that those who played with dragonfire got well and truly burnt. Anything I can do to distract him has to be useful.

At last, the fetter on his other wrist shattered. Again, replaced by air strong as diamond.

Just another little distraction.

X - X - X - X - X

"Well?" Fireblade stalked over the ground, his arrogance cloaking him. Lisa could hardly believe it was the same man who had wept and begged. "I have waited millennia for this, Malefici."

"Then another thirty seconds will hardly make a difference," was the detached reply.

"How did you get this fourth, anyway? Is this one going to come running?"

"Not precisely." Blue was still, a blade of a boy in the ghostly moonlight that drifted between the thinner mists above them. "My assistant caught someone for us. A vampire. Powerful. Not a native either; one that won't be missed. Or so she tells me."

"Why not just use your aide?" purred Fireblade. "No one's indispensable."

Chatoya's – though Lisa supposed it was Bhari's right now - face was perplexed, not seeming to understand their discussion. The yearning in the witch's face when she looked at Blue was disconcerting.

"Human, unfortunately," Blue threw out. "A shame; it would have been much more economical."

"Human?" Toya stepped forward, one hand poised on her hip. That sensual sashay was not hers. "Hael, I thought we cured your fondness for these upstart mortals?"

"Times have changed." Blue reached out nonchalantly, and Toya – no, Bhari - twined herself into his arms like a contented kitten. "But, my divine one, a mortal does not have the power we need."

Fireblade's snap grated on the air. "And speaking of time, when-"

But Blue Malefici's attention was not on him; it was focused behind the crumpled heap of Ryar, to the shapes forming in the fog. Not one, but two.

They came out, one figure dragging the other. Battered, and bruised, and gaunt, it trailed like a broken-winged bird. The head was down, faint in the mist but unease knotted in Lisa's stomach.

The first figure that emerged was only a girl – just a girl. How ordinary she was in this bold tableau of Nightpeople, how drab and dull. Yet there was a zealous light in her face, and she paused, proud.

"Your fourth," she announced, and flung the second person forward from the concealing haze.

Lisa gasped, the fog swallowing up the sound.

Cougar.

And in that instant, she saw it – Blue's face, so briefly exposed, his grip on the dragonfire slipping.

He didn't know! Lisa's thoughts screamed. He didn't know it would be his own brother! Now – quick, now, while he's distracted-

She bolted from her hiding place, swift as a loosed arrow and exactly as she had so few days ago, launched herself into the air.

_Don't-_ she heard Vaje bawl as Blue's power flickered and waned in her senses. Rock groaned, fractured nearby as she flew, and she only dimly saw the coyote bound to his feet. Whatever had held him was gone and-

Air slammed her backwards.

"You little-" she heard Fireblade begin to say, and fire streaked from his hands in a glorious blaze at her.

Lisa swayed, and icy winds pinioned her.

But by then Vaje was springing effortlessly, his body streamlining into a small furred shape that leapt right in the path of that bolt.

Oh nonono...

He dropped, his side seared into a blistered mess.

Ryar dashed towards him, horror in her face – and Fireblade caught her about her waist, fending off her single blow with a blast of power which made the air pop so loud that for a few seconds, Lisa was deaf. The dragon woman slid boneless to the ground, sobs wracking the air.

Through it all, Blue Malefici simply stood, looking at his half-brother. The chaos about him might not have been occurring.

They were only staring at each other, gold eyes and blue, so different – and yet, in this moment, so alike.

And then Blue turned away with a dismissive gesture. His voice when he spoke was utterly collected, and pitiless.

"Is there a reason for this dawdling?"

Lisa had never hated him more.

Blue turned his head to the human girl who had brought Cougar. "You've done well, Sandrine," he said mildly. "So I'll let you live today. Go. Now."

Sandrine, whoever she was, went without a word, or anything but one vicious, hard glare at Cougar.

A low growl rose from Fireblade like a volcano clearing its throat. "You released one of the prisoners."

"Well, you didn't have to fry him, Fireblade. You wasted one of our sacrifices," complained the evil, evil thing in Chatoya's body. "It's just fortunate that a replacement arrived."

Oh my god. Lisa's thoughts were dissolving into pure panic. Oh my god, she will really kill me, she will.

"Toya!" she screamed, pleading to the only person who might save them. "Toya, don't do this!"

Every memory she had of Chatoya, she slung at Bhari like a stone from a slingshot. So many of them in fragments, of times and places and days gone.

Bhari fought, her incredible power battering back Lisa like a gnat. But she wouldn't give up so easily; this was life or death now, everything depending on finding Toya buried in a dragon's power.

Blue's voice sliced the silence. "Well, Bhari? You began the war – will you end it now?" A simple gesture in her direction, and Lisa knew what he meant. It would be the most sublime irony; that her closest friend should murder her in pretence of peace.

And then one memory rose to the surface, clear and whole. If anything could bring her back...

She hurled it with the last of her power.

X - X - X - X - X

Images hit Bhari like hail, whirling about her in a giddy carousel. Too many, crammed with smells and sounds and sensations.

_Eyes bright and green, watching her with tenderness. The crisp sound of a British accent, this boy telling her eagerly about his day._

_The damp sound of a pancake hitting ground zero. A chorus of groans, and the frustrated clang of a saucepan on the sideboard. The vampire girl who had dashed from the shadows was pleading innocence, scuffing the pancake behind her._

It was her, Bhari recognised, the vampire girl – Lisa, her mind supplied helpfully, doing this. She should make her stop this. She should...

_The sight of a black-haired girl, desperately familiar, cuddled up with the British boy, and being relentlessly showered with M&Ms by the lamia sitting across the room._

_The smell of hot chocolate, thick with foam. The mug warmed her palms, as she sat around a fire with these three; lamia and cheetah and vampire, many years ago. Yet there was someone missing, there was-_

No, I won't allow this! Bhari raged in the clogged, enclosed space of her mind. Get out!

She pushed hard at this Lisa creature's mind, and knew with grim certainty she was winning. Yes, she would stop this, she would crush her, she would-

The image blasted into her mind with such force, Bhari was physically rocked.

_The face, chubby with the last traces of childhood, yet fiery in the stubborn line of the mouth, and the cascade of dark, dark red hair. Red as the ground around her, the lurid cherry red of life carelessly spilt._

_The one remaining eye was shut, the silver light extinguished; there would be no more quicksilver anger, no petulance, none of the rich, acid humour that had made Sonj Jameson so spiky. So likeable._

_In the end, so vulnerable._

_Sonj Jameson had stood in Blue's way, and for no other reason, he had cut her down, deadheaded her like the roses she so loved. And now the memories came crawling in like insects on filthy feet._

_How she had run, the pavement grinding under her feet; she had run to try and save Sonj. She had crashed into the house without any thought. Clutching the doorframe, her nails snapping as she saw what Blue had made of Sonj._

_And the blood, goddess, sweet goddess, the blood like rose petals thickly scattered, smattered, shattered._

_Through all that blood, he'd left her alive. Chatoya had ended it, but the shame had never left her. With every cut he had made, every bruise he had left, he had had one thought in mind; to leave Sonj alive. Not as a warning, as a challenge, as anything._

_Just because he could._

The thought roared up in Bhari, bringing not darkness, not banishment, but a new and overpowering personality. One stronger, made strong by a cruel world and a crueller heart to mirror her every move.

Bhari felt herself washed away under that anguish: washed away in one terrible cry.

_Because I let him._

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya breathed in, no longer seeing through her eyes as if she looked at a distant landscape. Oh, thank the Goddess, Bhari was quelled, a silent withered thing within the deepest corner of her mind.

And then she turned to face him. Never again.

Because of her indifference, because of her recklessness, Sonj had died. Because of Bhari's indifference, innumerable nameless people had died. In some way, both of those people lay in her now. Memories of old wars haunted her surely as memories of Sonj, dying in blood like roses.

But now the power was under her control. It no longer fought her; there was a lot she had learned in that frightening sojourn as a passenger in her own body. How to treat her stolen dragon powers. How to use them.

Blue's fearless eyes looked back at her; as icy and tranquil as they had always been.

"Yes," she said, quite collected, shocked at her own calm. "I will end it."

Forward she went, slow step after step in Bhari's usual, slinking walk. Sway of her hips, and the devilish smile on her mouth that was not hers. She left it there, acting her charade to cold perfection. Past the dismal, bleak gaze of Cougar, fury in her heart for him. Past Vaje's crumpled form, blistered along his side.

Past even Lisa, whose desperate eyes pleaded with her, but held hopelessness. Even she did not see through this sham.

And then only he remained, and she still slid forward.

So close there was not a hair between them, until she felt the snug slide of his arms around her, the satisfaction in his eyes that she was his, entirely his in any way he chose.

She put her lips to his ear, and reached up her hands to caress that angular, strong face. Caging him.

"My way," Chatoya whispered.

And then she did something she would never have even dreamed possible if she had not, for those brief, alarming moments, been Bhari.

She opened up the soulmate link between them like kicking open a door.

Here she was, inside his very self, in that sparkling, beautiful place that was so dangerous. His mind was clean edges, sharp lines, yet filled with a clear light. And now she saw what she had been too afraid or too blind to see before; the shimmering shapes that moved under the ice, the dance of fires incarcerated, of warmth buried.

"You can't bring the war again," she said aloud, her voice bouncing back as her reflection did in pallid, wavering form. "I won't let you."

"Won't you?"

He appeared from nowhere, a dark shape in his bright, blazing mind. On the jagged brinks, droplets of blood began to form and drip. The slick white floor darkened, oozing crimson consuming it.

The scornful eyes looked her up and down. "Witch of mine, we have played this scene a hundred times before. You throw your futile defiance at me, I defeat you, and we put away our props until the next time."

He walked forward, and shoved her.

Her feet went from under her, and Chatoya landed hard on her hip.

Above her, his face was striking, a mask of white and blue. "Your determination is admirable," he told her. A small, feline smile flickered. "A pity it will do you no good."

She reached for him, and it seemed a vast, painful force hit her-

And the cold night air was on her skin; he had his hands over hers, and wrenched her grip from his face with incredible strength. His power smashed at her, on every sense she possessed until Chatoya thought she would melt into dust.

From the depths, she felt Bhari begin to surface; she felt herself disappearing again. No...

"Don't you know?" he asked, almost gently. "You won't win. You aren't enough."

She was bowing under his might, even her dragon power crumpling under this vast invisible force. He could choke the air from her lungs if he wished, and he might. Suddenly, she was afraid he might, regardless of the cost to himself.

Not enough...

"Not alone," she answered, and reached to Lisa.

_Please?_ was all she gasped. The solid, bronze weight of Lisa was there then, pushing back against the windstorm of azure that swamped her supernatural senses.

_You might have asked,_ a terribly tired, hurting voice muttered, and she felt the near-insignificant glimmer of Cougar's mind. The pain in it cut her, and fury only made her fling yet more power at Blue.

The grim, angry lilt of Lance broke in. _Need a hand?_ The double slam of sea-green and china-blue – Ross – weighed in behind her. They knew what it meant if she lost. They knew Bane Malefici too, too well.

Unable to free herself from Blue's inflexible, excruciating grip, Chatoya raised her voice. "What about you, Ryar? Will you let them make you powerless again? Are you going to let them beat you? His promises are empty – you knew that when you ended the last war. Are you really going to help him start another?"

There was a cry, shrill as a lark.

And Chatoya felt Ryar beside her like the weight of all the oceans in the world, every shed tear, every drop that had slipped between cupped hands. For the first time, Chatoya glimpsed what Ryar could have been if her world had not moulded and damaged her so.

Blue's eyes widened, astounded and dark as assassins and victims and soulmate alike stood up to him.

For an instant, their powers were frozen, locked in tense, titanic battle-

And his power was gone. For a moment, Chatoya strove to understand what had happened, and slowly it dawned on her.

Blue Malefici had yielded.

They had won.

Staggered, she could only stare at him.

He spread his hands gracefully. "I concede."

"You bloody what?" was Lance's contribution.

Blue hiked up one eyebrow, mockery ripe on each word. "My glorious and articulate adversaries. You win."

He looked down at them all – they had won, surely, this strange union of people from across the world and across the ages. A smash of colours and faces, from the wistful violet eyes of Ryar ap Sangager, to the indolent, curling smile of Lancelot Stormshot to that anxious stance of Lisa, her hands cradling Vaje to her.

Chatoya stood in front of them, in front of this cluster who were all in some way hers, hers from the dark and shameful past, from the days when the last of her childhood had sparkled bright like morning dew, from the future she would forge with them, treading new paths and shifting old ones.

And he – he, who had lost the gamble he had taken with such style and grace and brilliance – he only stood before them with his held high and proud as ever he had. His blue beyond blue eyes moved over them, searching the faces of her friends and her followers and her fiends before that thoughtful gaze came to rest upon her.

She met him stare for stare in the waiting silence, in the thick, comforting darkness of a night that had almost been torn apart by fire, never to heal. He would have broken the world in two.

"My glorious adversaries," he repeated.

And then his smile flashed as startlingly, as stunningly as the sun and those eyes blazed with a thousand shades of blue, sky to ocean, every blue the world could encompass. The laughter poured from him, a full, genuine sound that filled the empty air with delight, with mirth, with contempt too .Blue Malefici stood there and laughed at them all, dazzling and astonishing as ever he had been.

They all stood and watched him. Chatoya was certain there must be some last trick, that he would snap his fingers and the world would crumple like tin foil.

Slowly, his laughter died, and he stepped forward, something strange and disturbing glittering in his face. Step after step, with that boundless confidence in every movement, until he was in front of her.

His hands clasped her face, and the rest of the world might not have existed except for him. He was warm with secret fires, warm with something that could never be broken or crushed. He should have been cool as china with that sunless marble skin, he should have been so many things but in the end, he would only ever be himself.

Chatoya looked at her soulmate, and for perhaps the first time, thought she knew just what that might be.

"This is the end," she said very quietly, so only he would hear. "You nearly had us all. But this is it. This is where it stops."

His smile put hints of colour into those slanting cheekbones. "Is it, witch of mine?"

"The past is gone. Let it go. Let it rest." His touch was tingling firefly-light on her skin, sending frissons through her bloodstream. He couldn't make it easy on her, damn him – even now, he wouldn't. "The war is gone, and if you brought it back, you'd have wiped out a world. Is that what you wanted? The biggest kill ever. The one to end them all."

Those extraordinary eyes widened, and one hand drifted to pull idly at her hair. It was too intimate, too tender for this moment and this boy.

Behind her, she heard a sound that might have been Cougar trying to shout through several people's hands.

"Is that what you thought?" There was surprise in his voice – surprise a cluster of sparks in the link between them. "Is that why you called in the cavalry?"

"I didn't call them," she said flatly. "Three mentally unstable murderers aren't my idea of good support."

He arched one eyebrow. "No? I hate to tell you, but girl scouts aren't much use, unless you're fighting the Cookie Monster."

"Well, you've got the colour scheme right," she said sweetly. Point for her by the irritation that prickled nettle-like in her mind.

His fingertips were stroking up and down her neck now, and unsettled, she recognised the gesture as Hael's.

"Did you really think I intended to start a war?"

This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was meant to be; he should have been defiant, or angry – not standing there with that quizzical, arrogant expression, not toying with her hair. Not fearless.

"Didn't you?" she answered slowly, and the answer was there. All he did was look at her, and in that tranquil sapphire stare, she realised how wrong she was.

Why would he want war? He knew that nothing would be able to stand in his way ,and if there was one thing, one blasted thing she should know about Blue – he didn't like life easy. But why else would he want the power of the Four? People who could change the world – who could change anything.

It was as if she knew the answer, but had forgotten it.

"I don't think it really matters now, does it?" he drawled, and suddenly his hand had tightened in her hair. Pain in tiny needles, but he hadn't put any real strength into it. Her neck would have snapped if he had. "Any other edicts you wish to issue tonight?"

"I don't think you understood," she said clearly, and a half-remembered memory came to her.

The dragonfire leapt up at her bidding, a half-tamed tiger within her, and it gave her a speed she should never have had. Arch back like this, and reach out to snap one hand about his wrist while the other pried free his fingers, the ground rippling up at her behest to knock his feet from beneath him-

Blue was on his knees, his offending arm twisted up behind his back.

She glanced up and saw they had quite the audience. An open-mouthed Lance was standing with one finger pointing at them, while Ross wore a smirk that stretched between his ears. Lisa had a definite glint of approval in those dark eyes, while Ryar merely watched them as if not quite understanding these rather odd people.

"Can I applaud?" asked Lance.

"Can I kick him while he's down?" was Cougar's growl.

Chatoya ignored them all. Blue had turned his head to gaze serenely at her. She wanted some kind of reaction, but what she saw there wasn't right. Shock, yes, she had wanted that – but not this growing satisfaction, not a caged, wicked amusement that bloomed like a desert flower in his face.

Still. It had to be said. "I didn't mean you stop playing with dragons," she told him, keeping her words low. This was between him and her. "I meant you stop playing with me. No more of this. I'm not your inferior, I'm not your toy, I'm not your enemy. I'm your equal, and I'm your mirror, and I am your soulmate, whether you like it or not. You can't change that."

"I know that now." There was a wry twist to his lips, but he still held himself regally as a king on his throne. Even when he was on his knees. "What is it exactly you want from me?"

More than I knew I wanted. More than is safe for me. More.

"Yourself," she answered, and the words surprised even her a little. Yes. Himself. All of him – everything that made Blue Malefici disquieting and dangerous and thrilling, everything that had touched her world and changed it in ways that were frightening and wonderful. The shadowy softness of his voice, and the treacherous tides of his nature – she didn't want him to change from the flawed, sparkling creature that he was – she loved him for who he was.

Oh Goddess.

She loved him, didn't she?

There it was. The truth she hadn't even dared think, out in the open, a vast and terrifying fact. Chatoya didn't even know she had let go of him. The world was shaken; there was her future dangling from a fraying thread in front of her and it all depended on hiding it.

She had won, but he had not lost.

"This is the end," she managed finally, staring at him as flatly as she could and terrified that he could see her soul as if she was turned to glass.

His head was tilted sideways, and he was measuring her. He stood in one motion, to cup her face and draw her close until the air between them was shadow, until he had obliterated all else from her world.

Oh please – oh please, don't see.

It would be the deepest profanity if he were to know; it would be his triumph over her.

I have given my soul into your hands and this is the end of me. Here is my undoing, here is my crucifix. Here are the nails – the look in my eyes, and the way I cannot breathe when you are this near, and this shivering.

Here I am. Your sacrifice.

"No," he murmured, and the thin rim of gold about his eyes flowed outwards, the sun exploding over the horizon. "No, only the beginning."

_It's only when I lose myself with someone else  
That I find myself._


	39. Chapter Thirty Eight

Adorations and worship to the angels who commented last time round. Thanks to:

**Debbi, Bonebaby, Anaita, Arc-en-Ciel, Hidden Jewel, Rowan, Yume, Adelaide E, Persephone, Nabby, Jangles, Dream Wind, Cacat-angel, Daugain, Phire Phoenix, Shelli, Frak of the week, Megami-Sama, Girltype, Dianna, The Mistress of Frost, Goddess, GoddessNMB1, Yodel, Doughnuts-mmm, Belladonna, Oli, Sitara, Charmaine, LinnetJo, Ceallaigh, Stacy, Sharmeen** and the wonderful **Pyrope**.

Lyrics are _Something Always Wrong _by Toad The Wet Sprocket (Album: Something's Always Wrong).

Much love,  
Ki

**Chimera Part Thirty Eight**

_Another day  
I call and never speak  
And you would say nothing's changed at all._

Several days later, the small, enclosed world of Circle Strange was still hectic and wild, still thrumming with the sudden intrusion of a private apocalypse.

A bit like a gatecrashed party, as Cougar Redfern later put it, only without the benefits of alcohol, and with debris on a rather larger scale.

Shaken, shocked and extremely frazzled, no one knew quite how to cope. It was as though the sun had changed colour. The world was the same, yet cast in other hues, with strange new shadows and startling illuminations.

Nothing had changed. And yet...it had.

X - X - X - X - X

"You'll have a lovely scar from this," remarked Chatoya, unravelling Vaje's bandages with gentle hands. "And nice pecs, by the way."

The coyote nearly choked. "Do you mind?"

He was mostly in one piece now; Chatoya was gradually healing the mess of blistered and cooked skin on his side. The burns of dragon fire, it seemed, healed as slowly on Vaje as if he were human. She knew he was in a lot of pain – more than he let on to Lisa, who clucked over him like a mother hen.

She glanced up, unaware that her wicked grin had something of Blue in it, confused by the flicker of unease in Vaje's eyes. "No. I'm enjoying myself, actually."

"He's gorgeous, isn't he?" put in Lisa proudly from where she was flicking open Chatoya's bottles of home-made burn salve. "He's just being coy, Toya, don't take any notice of him." Her friend winked behind Vaje's back.

Big change from the crying, furious creature who had been clinging to Vaje's unconscious form. Chatoya had never seen anything – not even Cern Akafren – affect Lisa so harshly. That night, the made vampire had been nearly hysterical, shrieking at her to do something, anything, just not to let him die.

Chatoya had known he was beyond her skills. The burn shot from his elbow all down his side, varying from angry, pustule-covered red to shiny pink, to liquid-filled white. When she searched for a pulse, she had found only a stuttering tap that was fading.

But then Ryar ap Sangager had nudged her out of the way, her touch sure where her face was anxious. The Water Drax hadn't even touched the wound, only moved her fingers over it like a medium passing her hands over a crystal ball.

The worst of the wound had faded, shrinking away like time turning back; of course, some old part of Bhari had whispered in Chatoya's mind, water is opposite to fire. It heals where fire destroys, but even the last Water Drax can't heal this completely.

At last, breathing unexpectedly hard, Ryar had moved back, turning her attention to someone else. Chatoya hadn't seen the Drax since, but intended to thank her when she did.

Now, Chatoya fought to keep her face straight. "What? Stop noticing all this?" She poked his unscarred side playfully, and burst out laughing as Vaje snatched his T-shirt from the kitchen table to cover his chest.

"You're treating me like a sex object," he informed them. "Now treat my damn wounds, lady, that's the only reason I took off my top!"

Lisa snorted. "That isn't what you told me."

The shapeshifter grinned, abandoning his show of false modesty. "Well, lass, that's different. You can kiss me better any time." He winced as Chatoya slathered liniment all over the half-healed burns. "The lads at Pursang will be impressed with this one. Beats Lance's jellyfish scars hands down."

Chatoya risked a glance in Lisa's direction and saw her friend looking grim. She knew Lisa didn't approve of Pursang, but nothing was said. An awkward silence fell as she finished ministering to the coyote.

"Well, you certainly won't be winning any beauty contests," she remarked lightly, trying to take the sting from the air. "Keep stretching, okay? Otherwise the skin will tighten and you'll find it harder to move on that side. I'm sure Lisa will help you with that," she added mischievously.

"She keeps me busy." His smile was affectionate, and for a moment, Chatoya wished someone would look at her that way; that tender, private glance said more than the casual words.

Unexpectedly cut by that envy, she gathered her belongings and went up to her room, because she could hardly bear to look at them, and see what she would never have.

X - X - X - X - X

One evening, finally feeling sane enough to cope with it all, Chatoya went back to the Slones'.

To her intense relief, she found Aspen apparently unscathed, clutching a bottle of beer in shaking hands. Sat on the front porch under the yellow glow of the light, he was almost the picture of cosy normality.

When he saw her, the lamia went ice-white, his strange eyes filling with foaming terror.

Chatoya paused, keeping a safe distance from him. She didn't know if he would run, or just try to pound her into tiny pieces. If it had been her, she would have been holding a chainsaw rather than a bottle.

Long silence, as they stared at each other. Outside the harsh glare cast by the light, the world was reduced to ink blots and black velvet.

"Are you...you?" he said timidly, half on his feet. "Or am I going to have to bludgeon you to death?"

Chatoya grimaced. "I'm about as me as I get. And you really shouldn't tell me your master plan in case I'm lying."

A sweet grin lit him. "Might not be my master plan. It could be a subter..sutter...trick. And you're the only person dumb enough to try and give me advice on how to stay alive."

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes searching him for any signs of injury, any damage from where she had unloaded the dragonfire into him.

"I had some interesting dreams for a few nights. And breathing was pretty hard for a few days after I got a lungful of whatever that was, but...fine. If you were trying to kill me, you did a lousy job."

"Oh, thanks," she muttered. Slowly, just in case he did think she was lying, Chatoya clambered up to sit by him, listening to the rhythmic thud of his feet kicking the steps. "Um...Aspen..."

He looked at her sideways, his smile dying like a guttering candle. "Witch girl?"

"I'm...uh..." Sorry I got possessed by the mad dragon bitch? Sorry I blasted a few thousand years of power at you? She didn't even know where to begin. It seemed crazy, surreal, as so much of her life had lately.

Aspen was looking at her with his eyes wrecked and wide, with the fluttering tatters of his hope in his face. It hurt to look at him too long, to see such heartbreak and to know he probably wasn't even aware it was there, naked to the knowing eye.

She knew pain far too well not to see it in him.

"I'm sorry," she said before she could stop herself. "I'm sorry for all the things that have happened to you. Most of all for what I did."

I know you too well. We've been thrown together too often; in that graveyard, in that café. I've gone to you – to someone I hardly know – for help when I couldn't ask my oldest friends. Somehow, we've become close without truly knowing each other.

"What you did?" Aspen shook his head, smiling wanly. "It...doesn't matter."

"It does," she protested, confused.

"No. It doesn't. You..." He swallowed hard. "Do you know how long I was on that enclave? How long I wished someone would come and take it all away, someone would kill him? And he used to hear me thinking it, and then he'd come and he'd...he'd..."

Words failing him, he ran a trembling finger over the back of her hand.

Images, all tangled like a confusion of barbed wire, sharp and prickled and atrocious. Slashing at him even in remembrance, even though he was bathed in light, safe in this human world and human home.

He lifted his hands to cover his eyes, as if he realised now how the broken pieces of his soul clung to them. Small shudders rocked him.

A week ago, she wouldn't have dreamed of doing it but now Chatoya put a careful arm around him. He relaxed into her with a trust she found both gratifying and just a bit disconcerting.

Gradually, the shaking stopped, and he peeked through his fingers at her. "But you took all that away," the lamia said, as if he had never stopped talking. Very quiet, his voice, and rough around the edges. "You killed him. I can forgive you anything for that. Zapping me with a little bit of dragonfire isn't much."

"Aspen, I didn't mean to kill him," she admitted now, guiltily. "If Blue hadn't..."

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter what your intentions were. You did. No one else could do it. Not even Tam. Look, witch girl, don't worry about it." He even slung her a rakish if tremulous smile, bright as the three streaks of blond zapping through his dark hair. "Blue explained it."

"Blue?" She was too surprised to say anything else.

"Yeah. He came to see me." The lamia shrugged, a careful façade of relaxation. Only his white knuckles gave the lie. "He told me all about the Four, and I told him he should have let me have the powers."

"What did he say?" she asked, too fascinated to ask the questions she ought to have.

"He'd rather grope you than me."

Aspen laughed out loud at her expression, at once stifling the sound as if he was afraid of who might hear.

"Okay, that's a lie. I mean, he would rather, though he didn't say that, but you know that's not the kind of thing he says because..." Flustered, the lamia stumbled to a stop.

"I know what you mean," she reassured him. "I think."

"Well, what he actually said was that you were strong enough to handle it." His face was wondering, examining her from head to toe. "First time I've ever heard him compliment anyone."

"Sure it wasn't his good twin?" she asked sourly. "I don't think Blue knows what a compliment is."

"He knows. He just doesn't think they're very useful. That's why he's not much into friends either. Me and Therese are pretty much it. And you, of course."

"He is _not_ my friend."

The lamia simply looked at her. "No, you're more," he said as if agreeing something. "Toya..." The way he said her nickname was very tentative, as if he thought she'd snap at him for it. "Are we friends?"

"I don't think so," she said slowly. "We're just..."

"Destined to spend lots of time talking about Blue?" he said with a sly humour that surprised her. "Do you...think we could be friends?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Because..." he continued, his voice becoming wistful and much quieter, "I've always wanted friends. I mean – ones who know about it all. Pursang, and the Nightworld, and Blue. I wanted to tell someone so many times. Tam doesn't like to hear about it; it scares her. But...it wouldn't scare you."

"Oh, it scares me," she said dryly. "Witless."

A timid smile grew at the edges of his mouth. "You're smarter than me then. T-toya – I'll help you with Pursang. With it all." His voice was earnest, briefly confident. "And even Blue. I owe you that much."

"You don't have to do it because you owe me," she pointed out wearily.

"It's not just that. I think...I think I do like you. I've never met anyone who stands up to Blue like you. You're good – even after everything he's done, you're good, and maybe you can do something with Pursang. Vaje'll help you, and I'll help you, and maybe even Ross will. He likes you...sort of."

Chatoya had to doubt that. Ross didn't like her; he owed her. "You'll really help? But...why?"

He ducked his head. "Because...because I'm sick of watching people die. I never really saw it, but I let myself be like *him*. Just hurting and hurting." No name. No need. It was reason enough. "So if you'll have me..."

Those shattered eyes, open – and still, even after it all, still hopeful.

"Of course I will," she promised, and meant it.

X - X - X - X - X

She didn't think the bruises would ever fade.

Ryar rubbed her neck. Those marks were long gone, but inside, she was damaged. She felt battered and drained, as if she had fought a long battle only to learn it was merely one of innumerably many.

She thought...

She thought perhaps she should not be here. She should be among the fallen, who had died for her.

Time had made Ryar ap Sangager a heroine. But in her heart, she would always be afraid.

Under the frosty morning sky, she sat before Fireblade like a student. Her long silvery hair covered her back, splitting to reveal the curve of her shoulder, her unicorn-white skin. The Water Drax was dressed too lightly for this world's winters, and seemed a piece of spring stepped into the valley.

Home. All those years, not alive, not dead. And she was home again.

She saw memories in it all, this place where Fireblade once had hunted, where she had tried to create a sanctuary and made only a pen. The fuzz of heather on the distant hills was the flushed purple of her eyes, a frail imitation of the vast bushes that Fireblade had once put there in a rare show of passion.

"A woodland to match your eyes," he had declared so boldly, sweeping her into his arms. "So I can see them when I come home, and think of you."

So you could see them when you came to me, from your infidelities, she thought now. So you could remember to lie.

More than anything, always more than her, Fireblade had loved power.

That was why she had never let him – any of the Four – know the true extent of her own. Miserly, she had clutched it close and prayed they would never realise.

Until that night, when Chatoya Irkil had called to her. When Fireblade had hurt her with his hands and his words and his power. She had done this terrible deed and made him the thing that sat before her..

Fireblade, his eyes empty. Motionless. Locked still by the power she had hurled at him to break his grasp on her. She had made him a mannequin, freezing his soul as she might the seas of all the world. It was much the same.

Every time he had cut her with harsh words, sliced her with his disparaging, or worse, bored looks, every flat slap of his hand on her face – all the anger and the injustice and the sorrow had boiled up behind her power and beaten him down like a tidal wave swamping an inferno. All in that one moment when she had ripped herself free of him forever.

Her terrible, secret crime.

But she would shed him no tears. They welled too often in the damp depths of her heart for those she had lost to his hands. Her sisters, torn apart by violence. Her few precious friends, every last one broken bones and shredded flesh. He had done that.

She had died gladly beneath his hands, thinking it would bring peace. Instead, it had brought only torment.

Until he had stepped into her dreaming world. Lancelot Stormshot, with his daring sea-green eyes, flicking his outrageous grin and casting quips like petals. Always questioning her, hungry to know.

Ryar breathed in shakily, shocked by how strong that memory was. And another tumbled onto it.

Of the night the war had nearly begun again.

Blue Malefici had turned, princely, and walked away from them all. Showing his back to them, careless and fearless. And Ryar had felt the relief roll up in her, the crash of tsunamis in her soul. No war. No horror. No more loss, only his surrender.

And yet still, for all the carnage that had not come, too much blood had been shed. Feeling his pain like a knife edge, Ryar had turned to the coyote, burned and blistered on the ground. All her old healing skills had flooded back to her as if the long years had not yawned between their use. Here was her place in the world. Softening its ills, taking away its barb.

Joyous, elated, she had spun to find this strange man who had trodden so lightly in her dreams.

Lance had been slumped on the ground, rubbing at his wrists as if they hurt. There was a tenseness line to his mouth, a wary slant to his body she should have heeded. She didn't.

Unthinking, she reached out a hand to help him.

He looked at it, and raised flat, uncaring eyes to her. The seas after a storm, a deadly, ugly calm. "I don't need help from monsters," the vampire had said and smacked her hand away.

The sound of flesh on flesh had echoed. Blank, she could only stare.

"But I'm..."

"Just like them," he said angrily, flinging the words at her. "So much for all your mighty morals, Ryar. When it came down to it, you would have let them kill me because you were too bloody scared!"

Ryar had felt the pain well up in her. Her one ally in this new world – and he hated her. He loathed her.

Childlike, she had run from them all, feet slapping on the ground, through the mists to the wooden struts of the pier. She had dived into the water, her body melting into liquid. For days, she had drifted in its tides.

She laid her hand on her husband's head, felt him still as a crypt. Even in her senses, he was nothing, a flat grey nothing smooth as a sphere. She knew she was saying farewell to him.

The place he had once filled in her heart was desolate and empty.

She should have felt something surely, some gladness it was all over – she was free. Surely there should have been some last lingering thought of their long life together, his wife, his sweetheart, his prisoner.

But as she turned and walked away, to trail her fingers in the waters that were perhaps the only honest creation of his in this place of lies, her only thought was of someone else.

Lance had turned from her. And she still didn't know why that was so terrible.

X - X - X - X - X

After it all, Chatoya felt intensely vulnerable.

She told herself over and over that it could not be true. She couldn't love Blue – she simply couldn't. It was stupid and illogical and dangerous. If he knew, he would use it.

And she couldn't shake the feeling he did know; that maybe he had known before ever she did.

Haunting her like a song, he seemed to appear in her life more and more. There were strange encounters she kidded herself were chance, knowing they were not. Knowing there was some higher game going on that they were both playing.

Knowing, and not knowing. Able only to wait.

X - X - X - X - X

Shamelessly, Lancelot Stormshot spied on Lisa's sitting room and its sullen inhabitant. He searched for answers, for the twist of blood that might show him the weakness in the appalling, intrepid being Blue Malefici was.

Smoke drifted out of the window in wisps and ribbons, twisting skyward. The hand that held the cigarette was taut, white-knuckled.

"Hey...you're skipping school too, huh?"

Cougar Redfern turned his head at the voice, but slowly, as if he didn't much care who it was. He was fitted in the gap between the wall and the open French window neatly, legs bent so the soles of his feet were perpendicular to the floor, his back perfectly parallel to the wall. It had to have hurt.

But anyone looking at him would have known he didn't care.

"I'm flunking anyway. Might as well flunk in comfort," the vampire answered flatly.

"You're smoking again?" Jepar Jubatus walked in carefully, as if he were afraid his head would fall off. Which, to be fair, he probably was. A massive bruise lay under the short sweep of blonde hair. "Don't let the girls catch you. They're on a 'rid-the-world-of-evil' crusade lately."

"Better hide your Playboy collection then," murmured the lamia coolly. His dark hair was mussed as if he hadn't bothered touching it since he'd got up, catching indigo highlights in the frosted sun. For a moment, he appeared eerily like Blue. "How's your head?"

"Getting better," the cheetah shifter said, slumping down against the glass gratefully. "It would help if Tali didn't keep patting my bruise and asking if it hurts less this time. You?"

"Can't sleep." The confession was calm, but the vampire's lips were tight, the words forced out. "Not sure if I ever will again. Why didn't we see it coming?"

"What was there to see?"

The lamia slammed the ground beside him. "I don't know! There must have been something – anything-"

"There wasn't." Tired of eavesdropping, Lance strode in from the dining room. "Blue set the lot of us up beautifully. I couldn't have done better myself and believe me, I've had some practice."

"What are you doing here?" snarled Redfern angrily. "And thanks for not telling us what Blue was up to."

"I didn't know," Lance snapped. "Just because I don't picket to ban the bomb doesn't mean I'm in favour of my own annihilation! Even Aspen didn't know, and he's the closest thing Malefici's got to a friend."

"Yeah, him and Blue were always thick as thieves," muttered Redfern, his animosity fading. "At least, Aspen was thick, and Blue was a thief."

Uninvited, Lance sat down, one knee crooked. "So what's changed? Aspen's still dumb, and Blue's just changed his goals. He used to steal food; now he steals all-consuming cosmic power."

At that, the vampire grinned, if sourly, and the tension in the air eased a little. "What's changed is that he didn't get away with it."

"What, you really thought he'd get by our Toya that easily?" said Jepar dryly, waving away clouds of smoke. "You know how determined she can b-"

His words faded under the sudden hurt that seared Redfern's face. For a moment he was rigid with pain, but it passed faster than a blink. Lance was confused, but took care not to show it.

"Sorry," the shapeshifter said gently. "I just forgot."

Cougar shrugged. "Don't worry about it, JJ, I seem to remember royally putting my foot in it when you two broke up."

The shapeshifter half-smiled. "That's just you."

"Wait..." Mouth agape, Lance looked from one to the other. "You both dated Chatoya? And Blue let her live...what's she got that I'm not seeing?"

"Just..." Jepar shrugged.

"Kind of..." began Redfern, his eyes liquid sunlight and hurting. "Oh hell, I can't explain it. Can we get back to moaning about my devious little brother?"

Lance wasn't going to push it. He didn't particularly care what assets Ms Irkil was hiding under that innocent act. But he did care about just what had happened with Blue, that night.

And he was not, not thinking about Ryar at all. About the look on her face when he slapped back her hand. The soft, shocked darkness of her eyes-

"Yeah," he said flatly. "Suits me. Malefici had it all wrapped up pretty as a parcel. Bastard."

"You don't like him?" Redfern sounded surprised. In the disdainful curl of his mouth, and the clean, sculpted bone structure, Lance saw a disturbing resemblance to Blue. But there was none of Blue's poise, only a stretched, angry tension in every line.

The Australian shrugged, glad of the distraction. "Don't know. I respect him – professionally, he's untouchable. Personally, he's cold. But no colder than the rest of us. He just never cared enough to hide it."

"I'm not sure he knows how. When's he ever needed to be anything but himself?"

"And he's smart. Smarter than anyone else, and he knows it," Lance continued to grumble. He knew he was doing to keep his mind from other things. Other people.

Flash of trampled violet eyes, desolate as he turned away.

"So smart – but he's smart because he's perceptive. Reads people like you wouldn't believe."

"Wouldn't we?" chorused Jepar and Redfern bitterly.

He looked from the cheetah's battered face to the lamia's gaunt form, and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. Forgot you'd been done over by Chronic Sonic."

"Chronic..." The shapeshifter sat bolt upright. "I called him that."

Lance stared. "We all call him that over in Pursang. Where'd you hear it?"

The green eyes were wide and baffled. "I haven't. But it's a little too weird to be coincidence. So how...?"

"He screwed you over," Redfern said, ash tumbling to the floor as he gestured. "Christ, Jepar, don't look so shocked. Messing with people is what he does. He got me for his sacrifice, he got you to hand over some dragon powers – he even got Toya, and she's his damn soulmate. None of us stood a chance."

Jepar settled back with an angry hiss. Something a little dangerous twisted under that open stare, and Lance found himself running over what he knew of the shapeshifter. Not a guy to mess with.

"That's not true," said Lance softly. "One of us did. And your Chatoya got lucky."

Redfern smiled faintly. "Did she? I'm not so sure that Blue didn't let her."

The thought of Malefici surrendering willingly to anyone was about as likely as Ross becoming a Jehovah's Witness. And Lance hadn't had a copy of The Watchtower foisted on him yet.

"I doubt it, somehow."

Jepar shrugged. "Does it really matter? It's all the same now. We're alive. We're kind of okay, and I'm sure we'll have about ten minutes of peace before the next maniac comes along."

"What do you mean, the next one?" demanded Cougar Redfern, with a flicker of wry humour. "We've got four damn dragons, three assassins, a female Renfield, a lot of uncomfortable interviews with the Elders coming up, not to mention the small matter of that whole raising-the-dead spell that everyone with an ounce of power felt. We've got more maniacs than the Lecter family reunion."

"I'm not a maniac," Lance put in, only slightly untruthfully. "Just a murderer."

"Round here, we don't differentiate," retorted the lamia, pointedly turning his arms to display a rainbow of bruises.

The Australian only chuckled. He'd had worse than that for less worthy reasons. "And Vaje isn't a real assassin – he's gone completely gooey over your vampire girl. Good thing too," he added approvingly. "Better than him moping round all the time."

The other two exchanged looks which had something of an older brother slant to them.

"We'll see," the shapeshifter remarked. "But if he hurts her, he'll have me and Cougar to deal with. And you'll need more than a hair curler to fight us off."

God, was he never going to live that down. "I was improvising with the tools to hand."

"There's a chainsaw in the shed," Redfern drawled, tipping his head back against the wall. "And an electric carving knife. And any number of bats, planks and knives lying around."

Jepar, Lance noted sourly, was fighting to hide a grin, and losing the battle.

"But that didn't seem to put off that delectable dragon lady," continued Cougar pensively, with the starts of a wicked smile quirking his mouth. "What's going on there?"

Inquiring gazes were turned on him. Asking the one question he hadn't dared ask himself.

"Well, it's been nice having this manly bonding session," he announced hurriedly, getting to his feet. "But crime and homicide wait for no man. If you'll excuse me, I've got some maniacs to visit."

Their looks said they didn't believe him, but Lance pretended he didn't care. He'd be leaving soon. Leaving her.

Her. Yes. He really couldn't put it off much longer, could he? One way or another, Ryar ap Sangager haunted him, with her smashed hopes littering her eyes, and her mouth so soft and inviting.

He had to see her one last time.

_And I can't feel much hope for anything  
If I won't be there to catch you if you fall._


	40. Chapter Thirty Nine

Lyrics taken from _Blackbird on the Wire _by the Beautiful South (Album: Blue Is The Colour)

**Chimera Part Thirty Nine**

_Tears to break a backbone  
Laughs to win a war  
And people come and ask me  
What I love you for..._

He was watching her again.

Blue was leaning against the wall, ankles crossed, looking relaxed and approachable. His fingers were tapping a soft rhythm on the wall that she seemed to feel echo on her heart. The starts of a smile were edging his mouth, and she knew that he was enjoying her unease.

It was written there in his eyes, which stirred with a dark and hungry look that made her stomach quiver.

Chatoya clutched her books tighter, wishing they could somehow shield her from that disturbing stare. She dropped her eyes to the ground, stepping neatly round the clusters of people filling the halls. She was meeting Aspen for lunch, and didn't want to be late. Of course. Yeah. That was why she was hurrying, that was why she seemed to be moving faster and faster away from Blue.

She threw a quick glance back over her shoulder – and he was gone. Half-disbelieving, she scanned the crowds, just in case he was doing the wacky, and being social.

He was gone.

Good, she told herself.

She'd been waiting days for him to do something – for there to be some unexpected catch to his surrender that would send the world tumbling into oblivion. Instead, nothing. Well...

Almost nothing.

Chatoya seemed to see him wherever she went now. She went to the shops, and he was talking quietly with Ross, flicking her a single wicked glance before apparently forgetting her existence. Jepar took her out for breakfast, only to discover her soulmate and Lance playing chess outside the café. He'd say a cool 'hello', and even enquired after her health once, though there was more than a little sarcasm on the words.

She went to school, and Blue decided to attend every lesson they shared with unfailing regularity. Several teachers had been stunned into silence at his appearance, and one had almost passed out when he handed in some homework.

It was clear that he was playing some kind of game. She didn't have a clue what it was.

Chatoya found herself starting to turn around every time she saw him, to walk away rather than have to face his impersonal words, so different to his intimate, probing stare.

And it unsettled her more than she liked.

It stung her to see him, to see the flash of dazzling blue, drowning blue, and feel the skip of her heart like rocks over water. It caused a bittersweet pain to whirl in her chest when he said her name, when he said the most simple, stupidly casual things. No one should be passing out over 'your bag's broken'. No one should be made to feel giddy and equally angry just because he had even noticed such a trivial thing.

Chatoya tried not to love him, she tried to deny it every time she saw him, but it was a lie. Part of her knew how utterly crazy it was – that he was deadly, and bleak as winter despair, and cruel. But the other part simply didn't care about that. It said: yes, he's all those things, but don't you see, he's more than that.

It was slowly driving her mad.

And she could only suspect he was helping it along.

Ever since that night, he delighted in running his fingers along her spine when they passed, in brushing back a stray bit of hair behind her ears if he felt like it. It was torture. And he damn well knew it was.

And the rest of the Circle weren't taking it too well.

The first time Blue wandered over, informed her in a bland and bored voice that her eyeliner was smudged, and then rubbed it off with his thumb, Cougar had been there. Only Lisa suddenly feeling the urge to hug the lamia had stopped Blue from being on the receiving end of an impromptu amputation.

"I can't believe you just did that!" Cougar had hissed furiously, making a gesture at Blue's back that Blue returned without even looking round. "Lise, what were you thinking?"

"I think I was saving Toya in case you got a bit keen and killed her by mistake," Lisa said.

Cougar had met her eyes then, and she could see his hurt, childishly simple. Chatoya had never wanted to hurt him, never, but she had, and, oh...what a mess. "Never," he said shortly. "But you know that."

And then he had stormed off, and sulked for the better part of the day.

Lisa had taken it all in her stride, but then she had Vaje to worry about, who was more than a handful. His burns didn't stop him trying to pummel Lisa at every opportunity, and proved useful in playing up for sympathy, and, Chatoya suspected, some good old-fashioned lovin'.

Of course, Chatoya hadn't told a one of them that she was in love with Blue.

Even Jepar, who knew her best of all, hadn't realised. He gabbled about how happy Tali was now, and winced every time someone came near his head, and like the rest of them, muttered curses whenever Blue was mentioned. Sometimes she caught her friends looking at her a little oddly, but put it down to them hoping she wasn't going to turn into Bhari again, a feeling she whole-heartedly shared.

Only Aspen knew, and she didn't feel comfortable enough with him to talk about it. It was Aspen Martin, for crying out loud. However hard he was trying to reform, he still had trouble using a knife to eat food with, rather than stab hapless assassinees repeatedly with.

Chatoya glanced up and realised she gone right past the classroom Aspen had his lesson in, and doubled back hastily. Damn. She'd missed her locker too, where she'd meant to dump all her textbooks.

If she'd seen herself, Chatoya might have understood the curious gazes of her friends. There was a new confidence in the way she moved, a little hint of slinkiness to her hips and waist, a subtle grace as she sidestepped the crowds. Bhari had left her mark in more than mere memories, more than sheer power.

Books disposed of, she found herself late now, and half-ran down to their rendezvous. She knew Aspen didn't like being left alone any length of time – he'd told her that himself in a nervous voice, his hands twisting round and round in his lap.

The classroom was empty, and she crashed in, chattering apologies and-

"Really, there's no need to apologise for your ineptness," drawled Blue. "I make allowance for it now."

No sign of Aspen. Only her soulmate, quite comfortably lying on his back atop the teacher's desk, his hands under his head.

"Where's Aspen?" she said suspiciously. She should go now. That would be the sensible thing to do.

Blue sat up, clasping his hands round his knees so he was facing her. He looked...oh goddess, she actually thought he looked cute. This was getting chronic. "I couldn't help but notice you've been avoiding me."

"That was the intention," she said as icily as she could manage. No guy should be allowed to look that good in a faded grey T-shirt. It just wasn't right.

A soft, startling smile that was so utterly unlike Blue that it made heat corkscrew in her chest. No, no, please don't be charming. Be cold and cruel, let me kid myself that I hate you. "How unfair."

"Unfair?" she echoed. "Blue, you've tried to kill me more times than I can count. You tried to start an apocalypse, what were you expecting? Floral tribute?"

He wrinkled his nose. "Hardly my style, witch of mine. It was my understanding that you wanted to be treated as my equal."

"I do."

Lift of one shoulder. "Then why have you been sprinting in the other direction the moment I do?"

That was treating her like an equal? "I don't like you looking at me like I'm...meat."

"Oh, I wasn't," he purred, that starving stare fixed on her again. "Meat isn't quite so delicious. Or so..."

One long look, down from the long braid of her black hair to the dusty tips of her strappy green sandals. His fingers tapping thoughtfully on his knees, that same infuriating rhythm.

And that stare moving up again, so intense she thought she felt it tingling on her skin like the fading sun. Chatoya gritted her teeth, and tried very hard not remember how those fingers had felt tangled in her hair.

"Tantalising," he said finally. "That top really is atrociously tight."

"You're a fine one to talk!" she snapped, and realised it was exactly the reaction he had wanted.

"Considering we're supposed to be dating," he continued, amusement playing about the edges of his mouth, "I've seen...rather little of you."

"Well, you were a tad busy trying to destroy the world," Chatoya said brightly. Nastiness was the only defence she could think of. "Funny how time-consuming that can be."

Blue rolled his eyes. "How many times am I going to have to say this? If I'd wanted to destroy the world, I would have done it by now." Damn him, he even managed to sound bored.

And it was true. But Chatoya couldn't think of any other reason why he wanted the Four together, except for a tiny, half-forgotten doubt niggling at the back of her mind.

"Then what do you want?" she said exasperatedly. "Stop giving me mysterious looks and riddles – I'm not..." She paused and rephrased the sentence. "I'm not _that_ psychic."

"Some time in your company," he answered smoothly, with the merest gleam of fangs. "I won't lie and tell you I don't bite...but I might not bite hard." He raised his eyebrows, giving her a suggestive look that had to be some kind of family trademark. "Unless you ask, of course."

"You want to spend time with me," she repeated flatly. "Why?"

He slid off the desk easily, and Chatoya only kept herself still by dint of too much practice. Personal space meant nothing to him; with one snaky move, he had wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her against his body so she could feel every line of it. Oh gods.

His smile was unexpectedly gentle and sinful. "Isn't that obvious?"

"I..."

"And of course," he continued, his hands stroking circles at the base of her spine, "we should discuss our business...relationship..." Soft brush of his lips over her jaw, then her mouth, sending shivery tingles through her, a fine dusting of silver sparkles through the soulmate link. "The future..."

The present's just fine with me, Chatoya wanted to say, but couldn't quite get the words out. She was fighting very hard against melting into this, snug in his arms and very much aware of his every movement.

It's Blue. It's so incredibly wrong...it's crazy...it's impossible...

It's heaven.

Even as she thought it, she realised his breath was a little ragged, that there was the faintest of flushes on his face, that he really wasn't at all unaffected by this. Quivers were running through her, through the link like foaming waves chasing each other onto the shore, and his thoughts were all tumbled up in them, flashes of feelings and images that made her eyes widen.

It was strange, realising she had this kind of power over him. Not much at all to do with Fate or destiny, and rather more to do with desire. Strange – and invigorating. And...leverage.

"You were saying?" she murmured in the space between his kisses, trailing a finger along his neck in a gesture that, had she but known it, was entirely Bhari's.

"Was I?" he sighed, eyelashes flicking up so she could see that his eyes had filled with that heavy, shameless golden colour. "I thought I was kissing."

He fitted deed to word, and Chatoya forgot what she had been intending to say or do.

At least until the door crashed open, and a voice interrupted. "Blue, Marissa didn't want to talk to me at all, what are you on abou-oops..."

She wrenched out of his grasp to see Aspen Martin standing there, one hand barely hiding his grin.

"Are you going to tell me this is wasn't it looks like?" he asked slyly, wiggling his eyebrows at them. "Because I saw where your hands were, Mal, and I'm not going to believe you. If you'd just wanted me to go, you could have asked, you know, instead of lying."

"It's exactly what it looks like," Blue said, sounding as cool as ever. "Now get out, Martin, so I can get back to enjoying myself."

Aspen was still grinning. Chatoya couldn't help but feel it was the first time he'd ever caught Blue doing anything that could be construed as normal. "Hey, Toya, any chance you'll let me know the embarrassing details? Just in case I'm ever short for money and need to blackmail him."

The disturbing thing was, Aspen actually sounded like he meant it.

"I doubt it," she said, very conscious of Blue behind her, his fingers tracing idle patterns on her back. "I'm more likely to need to blackmail him than you."

"Good point," conceded the lamia. Chatoya could just tell he was dying to burst out laughing. "But still-"

"Martin, _out_." Blue's voice could have cut glass.

Aspen left so quickly the doorframe shook as the door slammed.

"Where were we?" her soulmate enquired.

"You were playing games with me, and I was joining in," she said as unemotionally as she could manage. "I think it was an all-score draw."

Behind her, Blue sighed. "Is there any way I can convince you my intentions are wholly impure?"

She faced him, stepping out of his reach. Just because he wasn't threatening to kill her didn't mean he wasn't still searching for some way to hurt her. "If you expect me to believe you're after my body, you can forget it."

"What, you're going to believe I want you for your personality?" Slow curve of his mouth, reminding her unfairly of Cougar. "Well, if lies it must be..."

Inspiration was the flash of a flipped coin in the air. It might work...it might not. "Blue, I can live without your lies. Let's face it, I can get the full-blood member of the family with a lot less trouble, because even if he isn't my soulmate, Cougar's got more heart than you'll ever have. It can just as easily be him as you."

His face was almost savage for one careless moment. "It had better not be."

Chatoya shrugged, tired of it all. Infuriated at herself, loving him despite the fact he was such a cold, vindictive bastard. "What is it you want, Blue? I told you already – I'm sick of being messed around by you. Tell me what it is you want from me, and I may just surprise you."

His eyes were the same liquid feral colour as a tiger's, but far too intelligent. Chatoya didn't - would never – understand how she had been brought to this moment, to these feelings for him. From the moment he had walked into Ryars Valley, her life had begun to change.

Not just hers. It seemed to her that he had altered everyone with his own special brand of vicious honesty. She saw flashes of ugliness in her friends' faces when they said his name; flashes of fear. Blue made them all afraid.

Not just because he was eerie and brutal and fickle. But because...

Yes.

Because they saw pieces of themselves in him. Because it wouldn't be so terribly difficult to become something like Blue, to slice through the threads of civility and affection that bound them all, to forget the petty pickings of life. She'd seen inside his soul, heard his thoughts, and learned that they were only a distorted version of her own.

In too many ways, Blue wasn't very different from her at all.

The monster could be all too human.

Too human in the look in on his face right now, in the way he had touched her.

"I don't know," he answered at last. Was that a spark of anger in his eyes? "I was endeavouring to find out."

Oh. Oh. Was it really that simple? Could he really not be trying to manipulate her for once?

"This...isn't really the place," she said weakly. "Unless you're planning to make mad passionate love to me up against the blackboard."

Both of them turned to look at it thoughtfully.

I really am getting like him, Chatoya thought.

"It could be arranged," he said, his eyes that fraction unholy. "But if you can think of a better time and place, do name it."

Chatoya frowned. "Are you serious?"

"Utterly." Blue sat back on the desk with what sounded like a resigned sigh. "Witch of mine, I told you if you started something with me, I would finish it. I may be a sadistic murderer, but I keep my word."

She didn't know what to say and settled for, "Well, isn't that virtuous of you."

"Tonight," he said unexpectedly. "After all...didn't you mention something about a movie?"

Don't faint, Chatoya told herself. He'll collapse with a raging fever any minute now. "I...did."

He named a time, and much to her surprise – shock, she thought grimly later on – she found herself agreeing. A date with a murderer and her soulmate, who by unhappy coincidence, just happened to be one and the same.

X - X - X - X - X

It hadn't taken him long to pack. And now he was fitting the keys into the ignition of his rental car, bags in the trunk, leaving for something new.

He travelled light now, moving from place to place with reckless ease, leaving no trace of his presence except malingering memories. Ross couldn't remember the last time he'd owned a home. Plenty of houses he had rattled around in like a box of dice being shaken, but nowhere that had held a piece of his heart.

Nothing that had ever touched him, really, except for the woman who had her fingers clutched tight round his heartstrings and didn't know it. Who probably wouldn't care if she did.

And those words – Chatoya Irkil earnestly asking 'what do you want?' – so simple, the answer so sudden it had almost hurt.

He wanted what he couldn't have.

That one person.

He didn't kid himself about her. Trifolia Rasmussen was cold, as she always had been, and nothing would change that. Those eyes would always be frigid and superior, regarding him as if he were some insect that had scuttled across her path.

And he still wanted her.

Deep inside, in bewildering daydreams, he wanted to smash past that disdainful act and make her see him. To break through the coldness, to make her vulnerable as she had somehow made him vulnerable, to see her bleeding and powerless. And at the same time, he wanted to be able to gather her up in his arms after he'd broken her into pieces, and put her back together, to invade the secrets in her smile. To see if she would crumble into him in the moments when even she must be helpless and hurt.

He didn't understand it. Wanting to hurt her and heal her.

But he only knew he was compelled to find her now, to know. After all the useless calls, and pointless answers, he had the one that told him where he could find her. Chatoya Irkil had kept her word, and thrown all Pursang's resources open to him.

Everything that had happened to him in Ryars Valley mattered not a jot. All his thoughts centred around the future, about the possibility that he might find some small shred of salvation or destruction. He no longer knew which he was searching for; and no longer cared. One way or another, he wanted an end.

He started the car, and left it all behind without a second thought.

X - X - X - X - X

He sat on the low wall that ran along the path, startling in the sunlight that never seemed to reach him.

Sandrine admired him. Admired his skill with the kill, and his brilliant, frosty personality, and the deft way he turned aside doubt and challenge alike with a word or a gesture. Sometimes a violent gesture, but Blue Malefici never minded blood on his hands.

The consummate killer. Sheer perfection. And yet...

"I saw you," she said quietly.

He threw her a single amused look. She could see how much he had grown from the petulant, sharp child he had been on the enclave. Time had cooled him, had put layers of ice over his cruelty and indifference.

Well, it had.

Now, Sandrine was no longer sure. She had always thought Blue untouchable, unmoved by anyone or anything on the earth. Bloodthirsty, sleek as a shark, he had cut his way through the world with no real rhyme or reason she could discern. Yet now, she thought that perhaps these last years had held a purpose.

He had come here for _her._

Chatoya Irkil was just a girl – a very ordinary girl, who had so very nearly been overwhelmed by the Four. Surely nothing to compare with Blue, weak in her power and weak in her heart. But then...somehow...she had fought.

"You and her," she carried on steadily. She ignored the small flicker low in her heart. Envy...surely not. She was past all that. "What do you want with her? She's useless."

"Is she?" Blue shrugged. "Maybe I have found a use for her."

Sandrine snorted. "Finished fucking with her, Blue?"

Something dangerous zinged in his eyes, a little thread of golden fire. "Take care, Sandrine."

So. She had hit a nerve. How interesting – at last there was a string she could tug to make Blue Malefici dance for her. How ironic that he should be undone by someone so completely opposite to him.

"Why?" she challenged recklessly. "She's your whore, isn't she? That had better be all she is, Blue, or people might think she means something to you. People might think she matters. They'll let you have a plaything. They won't let you have a lover."

"They?" he inquired, his eyes wide and dark although the sun blasted full into his face. "Or you?"

"Does it matter?" she slung back, her tone exactly as bored and civil as his.

He smiled, baring his teeth. It wasn't a friendly gesture; Blue had no time for intimacy. In all the years she had known him, he had never touched another being with any intent other than harm. He never would.

"Absolutely. On the one hand, I let you live. On the other, I let you live in unending agony."

She glared. "Do you think your threats scare me?"

"No," he said with breathtaking calm. "Because you think I plan on torturing you. Don't be ridiculous, Sandrine. I broke you years ago. Don't you remember?"

Despite herself, she breathed in sharply, feeling the echo of remembered pain; a sudden cramp in her foot that was laced with small, insignificant-seeming scars. Recollections of his face, lit by fire so he seemed some strange angel in that room where the only sounds had been their voices and the hissing of flames.

"Yes," she muttered, the words a breathless gasp.

"I also put you back together," he continued smoothly. "You're not afraid of pain – which would make you stupid, if you weren't so careful to avoid it – but you are afraid of other things."

"Am I now," she said too sharply.

He'd taken her apart with cold methodology, indifferent to her pleas, her curses, her silence, her screams. Her bones had been snapped – sudden, slick sounds muffled under the dizzying heat of that room. And he hadn't cared. He'd watched, seemingly fascinated by the twitching of her shattered hands, his touch one moment tender, feeling the breaks inquisitively. And then brutal, wrenching harsh noise from her, while he talked to her in that immeasurably lazy voice as if he had all the time in the world to play out this game.

"Yes," he said. "You hate my brother so, now. But I remember when you two were stealing kisses in the maze on the enclave – and I think you remember too. I think maybe you hurt him to stop yourself hurting."

She swallowed. That simply couldn't be true. Cougar had left her, he had abandoned her, and all that had been between them was nothing. It was washed away in blood, sown through with salt. "You're wrong."

"Am I? We could find out so very easily." He shrugged. "I can make time."

He had distracted her. Again. Ferociously, she tried to counter-attack. "I'm not the issue here, Blue. You and her are. What is it you want with her? Exactly what does she mean to you?"

"I made her a promise."

"A promise."

"And I require your aid in keeping it," he said, and his smile flashed like holy lightning. "You may considered the debt between us cancelled."

She stared at him, sure the ground had tilted under her feet. This she had not expected. Had never expected. "How?"

X - X - X - X - X

For hours, Lance wandered round Ryars Valley. He went to the café and ordered a lunch he didn't eat. Killed some time arguing with the Elders about compensation for his ruined car. He went back to Chatoya's house, where Cougar and Jepar were still talking, though they fell silent as soon as he came in; he did the million small tasks people did to avoid the one substantial task that was most important.

And eventually, as the evening tumbled down in a flurry of chill winds and spattering rain, he went for a walk, wrapped in a borrowed jacket Lisa had forced on him. She'd even told him not to catch a cold.

The Australian had told her to bloody well worry about Vaje and stop mothering him.

But he'd smiled as he said it. Funny, he'd thought her nothing but an annoyance when he'd first arrived.

Lance kept telling himself he would turn round. Go back. After all, he had nothing more to say to Ryar; hadn't he said it all that night? And somehow, he ended up at the lake.

It was all so different from last time he had been here. No luminescent mists, rolling off from the lake, no unearthly power quivering the air like storms being born. Only the blue-grey sway and slide of the water, and her, sat on the end of crumbling pier with her feet kicking in the lake.

He meant to go then. Really, he did.

"I figured you'd be here."

Ryar started at the words he'd not meant to say, water splashing up with the flutter of her hand. For a moment, Lance was sure she was going to run – he thought he saw her entire body tense – but then the Drax turned quite calmly to face him. Although he knew without a doubt that she was every bit as solid and alive as he, she seemed a vision, a thing that would dissolve into dust and dreams if he breathed too hard.

Maybe it was that she was so small. Legends were supposed be larger than life, not tender and afraid and so very human.

Lance scuffed his feet on the floor, and then stopped himself. He'd given up that habit when he was a kid. "You can run away if you want," he carried on. "I wouldn't blame you."

"I thought you did blame me," she said coolly, as if she thought none of her pain showed in those big violet eyes, or the tremor in her mouth. Her voice could lie, but she couldn't. "Monster, remember?"

"I was upset," he muttered. "I get a bit tetchy when people try to sacrifice me in the cause of ancient evil."

"Evil?" Some of the anger was gone from her voice. "Is that what you think I am?"

It was hard to look at her. "Not now. But when you let Fireblade bully you into doing whatever he wanted? Yeah. Evil's as good a word as any."

She flinched. Only a tiny motion, but it stung him low in his heart. "I've never been a fighter."

He couldn't comprehend that. Lying back passively just wasn't his way, it wasn't the way he was. Whatever life threw at him, he'd catch it with both hands, and if it looked explosive, he'd throw it back. He opened his mouth to say so – and then remembered how impossible it had all seemed when she had left him to die. Hadn't he given up then?

"You fought when you had to," he found himself saying instead. And more surprisingly, meaning it. "I...just...I guess I thought you'd be different. That you'd be like the stories."

That she would be brave and beautiful and flawless and instead, she was none of those things. And yet...

She was shifting her feet in the water, just as she had been when he first saw her in the dream. Lance went to sit by her, pulling off his shoes with one hand and hissing at the glacial grip of the water.

"What now?" he asked, unable to keep the rawness and the desperation from his voice. My tarnished legend, my dreadful fairy tale.

Somehow, her fingers had become entangled in his, tiny thin fingers that he thought he would crush if he wasn't careful. Out of the haze of his dreams, he saw the strange deep coral of her mouth, and the unlovely set of her nose. She didn't fit with his world. She belonged in a Raphael painting, with all the other legends.

"I don't know," she answered slowly. God, the throb of her voice made him shut his eyes, just to concentrate on it. "This isn't my world. I don't know if I can belong here."

His throat went dry. Don't let her mean what I think.

He didn't know why it was suddenly so important that she stay. Common sense told him she belonged between the page of a history book, a safe, stale fable. A cautionary tale, or a moral. But sat there with her hand in his, small and warm, he realised he didn't care much for common sense.

"But I can try," Ryar said with a sigh.

"You're staying?" he blurted.

Her eyes were quizzical, the tranquil dip and rise of the rides. "For now. This is home, after all." She kicked her feet so water splashed. "It wasn't very happy, but it was home."

She was staying. She wasn't going to kill herself out of some stupid misplaced idea about not belonging. A vast load was gone from him, lifted clean off. Oh gods. Oh thank all the gods.

"You thought..." Her voice trailed off, and Ryar ap Sangager gaped at him. "Not again, Lance. Not ever again."

The softest, shyest smile spread on her face. In that moment, she was gently lit, a piece of heaven placed upon the ground. And then she kissed the corner of his mouth. It was a very sisterly gesture, and he wasn't sure why he was both relieved and disappointed.

"But thank you," she murmured, leaning her head on his shoulder. Quite casually, Lance put an arm around her, and they just sat, watching the clouds. He didn't think about it, or anything.

Sat there, they could have been merely friends, they could have been merely lovers, but what they were, he didn't know.

He didn't care much, either.

_And like the blackbird on the wire  
I will not take prey on you  
You would not want me to;  
For I'm too soft for such a thing_


	41. Chapter Forty

Lyrics taken from _Angel _by Sarah McLachlan (Album: Surfacing)

**Chimera Part Forty**

_So tired of the straight line,  
And everywhere you turn  
There's vultures and thieves at your back  
And the storm keeps on twisting;  
You keep on building the lie  
That you make up for all that you lack._

Strange how time seemed to circle around her, a vulture waiting for her to drop beneath the onslaught of small tragedy after small tragedy.

All those years ago, when the world had seemed simpler, Chatoya had come to the Pack to ask them for help. Now she returned, as much for some way to distract herself from disturbing thoughts of Blue as to try and help them.

She knew the scruffy path well, overhung with creepers and nettles as high as her head. It was a cool, shady place that buzzed only faintly with flies and crickets in the late afternoon.

Fading hints of summer clung on the air; shrivelled yellow flowers were sprinkled in the thick undergrowth. As she went deeper into the ghost roads, deeper into the Pack's territory, silence intruded like the stealthy feet of a hunter.

"Lo, witch."

The boy who stepped out in front of her was easily recognisable; Romulus had a shifty, artful dodger air about him, earned after too much time under the hands of bullies for his small build.

"S'pose you're looking for that mangy halfbreed mate?" Romulus bared his teeth, to show her the jagged lines of wolves' canines. "He ain't coming back to you, you know."

"No?"

When she didn't push him, Romulus relaxed. She'd healed him after too many of his routine thumpings for him to treat her as nastily as everyone else. "Don't think so. He's a better wolf than I thought he'd be."

"Maybe he's a good wolf, but he's a better witch," she said. "You really think there's no chance at all?"

The werewolf shrugged. In some ways, he reminded her of Aspen; the same small, nervous gestures hidden under angry aggression, but he was far tougher. Cougar had found that out after he chose to pick a fight with the wolf. When Chatoya was picking the remains of a wooden chair leg out of his elbow, the lamia had resentfully admitted Romulus was rather more defiant than he had bargained for.

"I don't think so. He ain't going to admit it, but I reckon Cern likes hunting. And besides – him and Flick, they get on all right. She knows how to handle him – won't let him sit round dragging all of us down."

"Can I at least talk to him?" She had to. Lisa had told her that Cern had wanted them all to abandon him, but Chatoya couldn't accept that. In a way, she'd walked into this strange mess with Blue for him, when she'd struck the devil's deal for Cern's life. That was when the balance of power between her and Blue had first begun to slide inch by treacherous inch.

Rom wavered.

"If he's really as set as you say, it won't do any harm," she pressed.

The werewolf's ash-grey eyes flickered, and then he stepped aside. "Go on then. You're wasting your time, but I ain't going to stop you."

"Thanks." As she brushed past., he was already settling back into a crouch, watching the entrance for intruders. He looked like a wild thing, huddled in the shadows with his unkempt hair and dirtied skin. And maybe Cern was too.

He must have known she was coming: Cern was sat alone in the clearing, on a picnic table with his feet on the bench. His arms were crossed loosely on his knees, and he didn't say anything as she perched on one of the upturned trash cans that formed part of the Pack's unorthodox chairs. But he was smiling.

Not the secretive smile she knew; something sadder, and muted. Maybe he'd never be anything a shadow of the person she'd known, with his eyes bruised and wild.

"Hey." She didn't know what else to say.

"I know why you're here," he said bluntly. "And it's no."

Chatoya felt almost wounded by those short words. "Are you at least going to tell me why?"

He shrugged. Someone had given him an amateur haircut; the wavy mahogany hair was jaggedly short around his ears and neck. "Do you need me to?"

"Stop evading the question!"

"Fine." His smile snapped off. In those violet eyes, she thought she saw a quick green flare, like a cat's eyes catching the light. "I lost my soulmate, Chatoya. I lost the one person I thought was going to be everything to me – she was my world, don't you get it? And she died because Blue wanted her to."

"She couldn't have survived," she said simply.

No more than Bhari could survive in this world. The Nightworld ruled with subtlety and iron fear; its own fear of having its monstrosity lit in a lightning world, human fear of shadows and strangeness. Not in blood and fire and rage, but in stealth, in patience, in threats.

"No?" His fists flexed, as if wishing for claws. There was venom dripping from his every word. "Only because people like you say so. None of you tried to stop Blue – you let him do it. You let her walk into the fire. You didn't care."

"You know that isn't true. For gods' sakes, she was nothing but a weapon made to kill anyone whose blood wasn't pure enough. Jal murdered Ruby. She only let Jepar live on a whim. She tried to kill you, and don't tell me I don't care, because I goddamn well cared when I had your blood all over my hands, I cared when I spent the whole of that night trying to keep you breathing!"

"Do you think I _cared_ how many people she killed?" he shouted, slamming the table so hard that wood fractured. "Why didn't you let me die? You might as well have done! Why didn't you just bloody kill me yourself?"

How could he be saying this? Hurt and fury mingled in her chest until she felt as if they crushed her heart in a tight, burning shell. Words rose to her lips – a torrent, a flood, and she didn't care what she said: in the back of her mind, the dragonfire welled like acid, eating at the pain. Use it, Bhari urged, a subtle ghost. Use it, and grant him his wish. Ungrateful thing, pitiful little mortal-

No! she thought fiercely.

"Cut it out, Cern." The new voice, dry and uncaring, belonged to Felicity Serafine. She stepped into the clearing in her usual attire of shabby black that made her copper hair stand out so starkly. "Soulmate or not, she was an unmitigated nutbag. And you know it. Don't say you wouldn't have cared. That's a dumb lie."

"Is it any of your business?" Cern said nastily, a flush dark on his olive skin.

"When you're screaming loud enough to wake me up – yeah, I reckon it's my business."

Uncertainty flickered in his face. "I woke you up?"

"Uh-huh." The werewolf grinned, rubbing away a bit of smudged eyeliner with her finger. "Lucky for you Donna sleeps heavy, or you'd be looking at the wrong end of an ass-kicking about now."

She turned to face Chatoya, her face closing off now. The grey eyes were sleet hard, and most of the warmth in her voice was gone. She cares about Cern, Chatoya realised. More than he knows or guesses.

"He's better with us, witch. Better off than he'd be with all your friends and their perfect little lives. We'll look after him. He's Pack now."

Perfect little lives? She wanted to laugh, it was so ironic. So brutally and unknowingly cruel.

"Yeah, it's real perfect," she muttered.

"Whatever." Flick's every gesture said she didn't care. "Like I said, we'll look after him."

Very well, she would leave it – for now. But only for now. She wanted to tell Cern how much she missed having him there to talk to, how much she missed his wisecracks and his flirting. How much Lisa missed him too.

But Flick was stood there, a solid presence shattering any intimacy.

"All right," she said mildly. "Cern...if you ever want me-"

"I know where you are," he interrupted. "Thanks, Toya, but no thanks. I've changed too much, and none of you have changed at all."

"Oh no," she said. "Of course not. We haven't changed an iota."

"By the way..." Flick spoke up again, her expression quizzical. "You know anything about that big disturbance up at the lake a couple of weeks back? It gave us all a thumping headache."

It was Flick she replied to, but it was Cern that she looked at, the anger rotating slowly in her ribcage. "That? Oh...it wasn't much?"

"No," began Flick. "Sure felt like som-"

"Not much at all." Chatoya overrode her ruthlessly. "Fireblade – you remember him, the terrifying legend who's real, by the way – raised his wife Ryar from the dead, and I got possessed by Bhari – you know, the other terrifying legend who massacred her own people and just happens to have a magical connection to Fireblade and Ryar. And goodness me, what else happened in the midst of all that tedium? Blue tried to use us all to bring back the Burning Days by sacrificing Cougar, who'd been tortured by one of Blue's mad minions, and oh yes, Lisa nearly got fried by Fireblade, but don't worry, Cern, our bloody perfect little lives rushed in and saved us and we all sat down for tea and crumpets afterwards!"

They were both gawping at her.

She turned, the anger boiling hot in her cheeks, and walked away, unaware of the way the ground leapt up from her footprints, sprouting green where none had been before. Not even noticing Flick crouch down to poke at the new grass with a cautious finger.

"No," she snapped, her words floating back to them on a twist of dragonfire. "Nothing's changed at all."

X - X - X - X - X

After Lance had gone, Cougar and Jepar were left alone. It shouldn't have been awkward – they'd been friends for years now, ever since this scruffy beat-up vampire had stomped right into the cosy little house Jepar's sister had shoved him in, and demanded to know why the hell he had to share with a goddamn shifter? Words had been exchanged, punches had been thrown and somehow friendship had sprung out of all the wreckage. No, it shouldn't have been at all awkward.

But...it was.

"You really okay?" Jepar said softly. "And don't mess me round."

The honey-gold eyes flickered to him quickly, furtively, and then Cougar let out his breath in a slow hiss. "No. No, I'm not okay."

The cigarette was put out on the brick wall in a trail of orange sparks.

"I don't know how I can be okay," Cougar said in a clipped, empty voice. "And I don't understand why. I know I'm not easy to live with, fine, I get that. But Christ, JJ, my own soulmate didn't want me. Ruby didn't want me. Sandrine didn't want me. And Toya..."

The vampire fell silent, and Jepar could only sit there and wait. He didn't know what he could say that would make Cougar feel any better.

"Toya would rather have my little brother." His voice was so bitter it almost hurt to hear it. "She'd rather date that – that fucking _snake_ than me."

"Maybe she's got her reasons," ventured Jepar. The complex maze of his friends' relationships was enough to make M C Escher's eyes water. "She's running Pursang, Cougar."

There was a delicate pause, and for a beat, Jepar thought Cougar was going to be calm about it all.

"She's WHAT?" screamed the vampire, his voice so loud one of the neighbours peered anxiously over the garden hedge. Jepar plastered on a big, we're-all-okay grin and waved until they went away. Cougar was on his feet by now, glaring murderously. "That's not funny!"

"I know," the shapeshifter said wearily. He didn't understand how everything had become so incredibly confused – how it had gone from him, and Cougar, and Lisa, and Toya to this huge mess of people and punctured emotions, to this dark swirling chaos. "Believe me, I wasn't laughing either."

"She'll kill herself!" shouted the lamia, stalking round the room so furiously, Jepar half-expected so see flames burst out on the carpet.

When he turned, his fangs were white and shining, and his eyes drizzled fire like golden syrup. Oh boy. Cougar going off like a nuclear rocket was not going to help anyone, though Jepar had to quash the tiny urge to let him loose on Blue just to see what would happen.

"How could you let her do it?" Cougar pointed a finger at him. "Of all the stupid things you've done, JJ, and I can think of a few-"

"I didn't let her!" he interrupted indignantly. "She did it all on her own."

"She's not that dumb." There was desperation in his voice. "Tell me she isn't that bloody stupid."

You poor sod, thought Jepar. Cougar's face was absolutely ashen with strain, with needing to believe the Toya he loved was not so reckless or bold or – or dangerous. He hated seeing this, his two friends torn apart by something that was supposed to bring people closer.

It seemed like since Blue had arrived, the world had become twisted into an uglier shape. He'd even made love sour. And Jepar thought he'd never hated anyone more.

His friends – his circle and his sanctuary – were crumbling about him. Cern had walked away, chasing death in a hunting cry, and Toya had wrapped the shadows round her. Every day, Cougar was bleeding from self-pity and this crazy consumptive love. Ria was gone without a word to any of them, and it seemed like the world was colder and harsher than ever he'd dreamed.

An apocalypse passed while he was unconscious and oblivious, but destruction had still come to them all.

"She is, isn't she." Cougar sat down, eyes dazed.

Jepar shrugged. "You said it yourself – screwing with people is what Blue does."

He regretted his choice of words at once. Searing jealousy in Cougar's eyes, burning him up from the inside out.

"I don't want to think about it." Cougar stared out of the window. "You know what?"

I don't know anything now, thought Jepar tiredly. He wanted Tali. He wanted her to hug him, and crack some silly joke that would make him feel a little better, and even to whack him on the head and ask if it still hurt with just a touch of impatience in her voice. "What?"

"I thought...just for a little while...I thought maybe Blue had it right." Cougar wouldn't look at him; only at their garden, where the blood-roses were bright in the uncut grass. "Maybe it was better just not to care."

"It isn't."

"How can you be so sure?" came back the challenge almost at once, as Jepar had known it would. They'd played this game for years, ever since Jepar had refused to tell any of them what he'd done that had forced him from his home, that had made him hunted among his own people.

Jepar had always managed to rebuff or avoid the subject. Not from shame, exactly, nor from regret. He didn't feel much regret for what he did; and that was what terrified him. There was a streak of coldness in him, and he knew it was still there. If someone threatened the people he loved – yes, he'd cause harm for their sake. He'd kill for them. He'd torture for them.

Looking at Cougar's face, he knew he couldn't just brush it aside again. Maybe Cougar was more like Blue than he'd believed or wanted; maybe the lamia was far closer to becoming that cruel and that callous.

"You really want to know?"

The lamia's eyes narrowed. "Of course I do. You're so damn mysterious about it, JJ, we've all been wondering. Can't be that bad."

"I don't suppose it was." Jepar shrugged.

Memories flooded him, as they always had. A throat, beaded with blood like rubies, maimed and limp in swansong. Her fingers, deeply sliced and mangled from where she'd tried to fight off the knife with her bare hands, all purpled flesh and creamy bone. One of her shoes half-fallen off, revealing blisters because she'd continuously worn shoes that didn't fit...

He always remembered the most inane things about Vanira.

"Some people killed one of my friends. She got messed up in something she shouldn't have. Bad luck. Wrong time – wrong place." He was amazed how tranquil his voice came out. He'd not been tranquil at all in those days; he'd been a bubbling stew of hatred and fury. "Everyone knew who'd done it, that was the crazy thing. They all knew, and no one did a goddamn thing. Even her own brother wouldn't."

"Scared?" guessed Cougar, who was looking at him like they'd never met before.

"As hell," he said bitterly. Blood had clogged the air, though there'd been less of it than he'd thought. Screaming cherry-red on her throat and her fingers and face and one little smear like spilt wine on her new top that she'd been so proud of. "They weren't going to do anything. So I did. I went, and I found them, all hanging out in their bloody bar like they had something to celebrate, and I gave them what they deserved. The Blue Bar, it was called. Not such an accurate name, as it turned out."

"JJ...you made the headlines. The Blue Bar Butcher...you're kidding."

"Is that what they called it?" He shrugged. "What a dumb name. I never knew that. I didn't hang round long enough."

There was faint, spinning horror in Cougar's eyes. "I remember that...a cousin...you made the damn headlines, even on the enclave. We all thought it was Nightfire. I even thought it might have been Blue."

"Nightfire." Jepar laughed softly. "They came to my parents when I was five. Offered to take me off their hands. Said some witch had seen great violence in my life, that they could train it in the right direction. Of course, my parents weren't having any of it."

"Nightfire wanted you?" The vampire's hands had tightened round his leg, his knuckles bone white. "I knew they'd offered a reward – and that they wanted you alive. I never thought that might be why..."

"The bounty's been out that long?" That was new, and startling; he'd not stayed long enough to know that.

And he wouldn't have cared if he had. Too sharp, the memory of standing a room full of still bodies with his heart empty and numb, breathing hard and barely aware of the cuts and bruises covering him, his blood muddled with theirs. Their skin under his nails, their voices indistinct in his mind. Glasses of half-finished drinks still on the side, a single chair upended. And oh yes, like a half-forgotten detail, their blood cloaking him, sticky in his hair and clinging to his lips and it had felt so good, so goddamn good.

It had been as if he had suspended every piece of humanity in himself. He had put aside his soul, for this impossibly pure and exquisite revenge.

Maybe if Gatajri hadn't run in, it wouldn't have stopped there.

But her brilliant emerald eyes, the exact mirror of his own, had been a shock. A slice of reality in this nightmare world.

She hadn't said anything.

Long seconds, as the blood congealed on the floor and on his skin. Staring at each other, her golden hair tumbling about her for once, not pinned strictly back. Still damp; her clothes unkempt, her chest hitching because she had to have run here with every ounce of speed in her blood.

She'd held out her hand, and he had taken it meekly. And she had led him out of there, just as she had done a thousand times when they were children and she was his all-knowing older sister.

Just like the community had known who killed Vanira, they'd all known who took revenge for her. And yes...in some veiled, shameless part of their hearts, they'd blessed him for it. And they'd hidden him here, hidden him from the world and from a punishment he probably deserved.

He was about to tell Cougar all of it, before he realised Cougar had plucked it from his mind. The lamia's eyes were indescribable; filled with an intense emotion that it took Jepar a long time to recognise as fear.

Not of him. But fear of what it would mean if the vampire did let himself become cold and devoid and harsh, as Jepar had so briefly, as Blue always had. As maybe Toya was beginning to.

"That's your choice," Jepar said quietly. "Yeah, it's easy to let it all go, and just forget. Maybe if you wanted, you could end up that way. You could hurt us – maybe you could even hurt Toya-"

"Never." Cougar had snapped the words before he seemed even aware of it. Then he took a deep breath, and his eyes were that solid, fiery gold. "Never that."

For the first time, it seemed as if the incessant, subtle grief for Vanira that haunted him had some value. "Good," Jepar said savagely.

"Yeah," said Cougar thoughtfully. "I think it is."

X - X - X - X - X

I thought the dark times were gone, Vaje Chusson thought, sketching lines in the condensation on the window as evening crawled in. I thought they were gone forever.

Sure, they had been replaced by the slick snap of murder, but the pain had been diminished. He remembered that pain still; it sliced him when he saw a waft of crimson hair, or the bold smile on a child's face that mirrored his son's too closely. He'd lost them both in bloodshed, and lost himself for a while.

Time had eased his hurt. Yet more time had chilled his heart, until he'd thought himself numb. And then he had come here, and found, startled, that he wasn't dead as he had thought.

If he thought of Lisa Ochai, leaping out from the mists, it made his skin crawl. God, how could she have been so foolish, so thoughtless, so brave when she knew what was waiting for her?

And now he had to face all the things he had been ignoring. For the last few days, he had let Lisa coo over his wounds, and he had flashed a macho smile and flexed his muscles, and they had both let themselves slide into shallow charades, and avoided the words that were important.

That said: I leapt into lightning for you.

That said: And you screamed for me when you thought I was gone.

It was time to face them, he thought, because he would have to leave soon. What reason did he have for staying now? Business was concluded. He should – yeah, he should tell her now. Get it over with.

He found her in the kitchen, cooking a stir fry. The spicy scents of tumeric and sizzling meat wafted to him, and the steam blurred her body into soft curves. It hooked his heart to see Lisa in such a simple intimacy, her head tilted to one side a little thoughtfully, and her gentle humming in his ears.

Vaje Chusson stood, and watched her, his hands clenched tight at his sides because he was afraid of what he might do otherwise.

The scars throbbed; even Ryar's healing hands could not erase his trial of fire completely. Each time he closed his eyes now, he felt the ghost of scorching pain, the slam of uncaring ground.

And each time he opened them, he remembered Lisa's shrieking cry, and, more telling, her too-tight clinging grip. Her hovering face. Most of all, he remembered how happy he had been to see her.

The thought that she might have been killed had been terrible.

Don't do it, he told himself. Don't feel this way. Never again...I can't bear to lose someone again. I can't live through it.

He must have made some small noise, because Lisa half-turned, her eyes wide and questioning.

"Oh, it's you." Relief in her low voice, and something warmer, though perhaps he only imagined it. After all, he wanted so pitifully much to hear it. "I thought...I don't know what I thought."

"You think, sweetheart?" he queried, trying so hard to keep his voice even and flippant.

That was how they played it, wasn't it? No strings, no barbed emotions to drag them down. Just frolics and freedom and fun.

But her smile was bright, not the tentative, polite – and insincere – smiles of so many people, but filled with tenderness. It made a tight tangle of emotions writhe in his stomach at the thought that maybe – maybe he was more to Lisa Ochai than a way to pass eternity.

"Sometimes. When I have to. And I had to then. God knows I did."

"It's been a rough couple of weeks."

Her smile wavered. "I was scared," Lisa confessed, and dropped her eyes. The bowed line of her neck was shockingly vulnerable. "Vaje, I was so afraid. Toya stood there, and she looked at me – and she didn't know me at all. She could have killed me then. She would have. And when you were...when you lay there...I was – I..."

He moved before he could stop himself, and wrapped his arms tight about her. It was the only comfort he knew how to give, the only gesture that would not be cheap or false.

To his surprise, she buried her head deep into his shoulder. This was breaking their unwritten, careful rules. This was knocking down the wall between them. No more pretence.

With a tiny inarticulate sound, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, Vaje clutched at her back and leaned his head against hers. Her spine was curved under his fingers, arched into him with the burrowing need to block out the world.

If he shut his eyes, there was only her in his arms. There was only this.

And it was too late not to care. Too late already, and he knew he was lost. Maybe he had been from the moment she'd stormed right into his world.

He knew he was beginning to love her; it was the start of that feather-light tumble, dizzying and delirious – and oh so dangerous.

But he only squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and breathed in the scent of her hair and drowned in the feel of her hands pressing at his shoulders, drawing him closer until she was his world, a world of touch and desperation and words unspoken.

Her voice, when she spoke, was muffled.

"Are you going?"

It was the last moment – his chance to walk away unscathed. He could leave, and never have to face the despair of life without her. He would never love her, he would drift through the world as he had for so long, alone. His heart would be safe from the ache of love, the ache of loss.

He would kill, perhaps, and sometimes think of a girl who'd thrown him to the floor. But it would pass, and he would be void and safe through time everlasting.

It was his final chance. And Vaje coiled his arms tighter yet about her, fingertips digging into her skin. Maybe in farewell; he didn't even know until the words were out, the answer was there.

"Not anymore," he whispered.

So he would fall. There would be pain at the end of it, the sting of bereavement, the slow sad beat of his heart without her. He would fall, believing it flying while she was there beside him, and only when she was snatched from him, and he reached the bottom, would he see the end was dark and violent.

Yes. He'd fall into darkness. But for now, he was content.

Maybe that was all that mattered.

X - X - X - X - X

The only sound was the pad of her feet on the ground, the traffic a far off moan. The town was at her back, its comfortable homeliness further behind her with every step. She half-wished she was back in the house, watching old black and white movies with Lisa and Jepar like they used to. There would be some cheap junk food, and the usual friendly rows over who got the comfy chair. And of course, Cougar sitting in a corner making pithy commentary on every archaic phrase, inventing his own dialogue in any poignant silence provided.

How bittersweet. Here she was, walking in the first thin veil of darkness – soft purplish hues at the edges of the sky – to do that exact thing with Blue. But she couldn't imagine the same warmth, the giggled comments, the hurled cushions.

But she could imagine other, more intimate gestures that made heat fizzle in her stomach, and shortened her breath. Yes, maybe that was why she was going.

Actually, there was no maybe about it.

The winds lifted her hair lightly, brushing cool air over her throat like the sensitive path left by cold lips. Chatoya ignored it; she seemed not to feel the onset of winter so much now, and she couldn't help but think the slick bubble of the dragon power in her body had something to do with it.

The changes in her had become more apparent with every passing day. Her magic had always been a green growing force; it seemed now she had barely to thread her spells into the ground to make the plants spring up like a living army awaiting her command. The simplest things had become thoughtless; even the herbal teas she had made in recent days were so pungent, Lisa's eyes had been watering.

"This isn't mint tea," her friend had remarked, wiping at her face with Kleenex a solicitous Vaje handed over. "This is homeopathic warfare."

Her most basic spells were bursting with energy; flicking away dirt with a sweep of magic, she had raised a powdery cloud that an enraged Ross had walked into. When the dust had settled onto the floor, every surface was gleaming, and Ross had acquired a distinguished head of grey locks, much to his disgust.

Slowly, barely daring, she had begun to test her newfound strength. Spells she had found an effort had become nearly routine; the garden was a plethora of out-of-season flowers, glowing in every colour of the rainbow, a paradise of the exotic and aromatic.

But there were other, less pleasant consequences.

Her dreams now were wild and smoky, full of strange faces that whirled before her in glittering array. More than once, she had dreamt herself a goddess in a long lost land, her laughter ringing out across a world streaked and stained in carnage. The war of times gone had become her war; her loss.

And Hael...

Yes, she dreamed of Hael nearly every night. Chatoya found herself half in love with a man she had never met, never touched, never even glimpsed from afar. A phantom lover who drew gasps of pleasure from her in the haze of a clinging forest, whose every feature she could feel if she shut her eyes and remembered him, whose skin she had moulded under her fingers and whose warmth had fended off the coldness of the world too often.

And more than once, his face had altered in her dreams and the eyes that were surely a cloudy playful green would change and chill, swirling into the impossible intense blue that she knew just as well; his skin would be pale and sunless, and she would find herself staring at another love. This one all too real.

Like skeletons dug from age-old graves, she had unearthed another life, and it was consuming her with wormy slowness.

The smooth tarmac was fading to a potholed track, and she knew too well the crevices in this road. There was the leaning tree, the bark scraped away where Blue had run his car into it. Glass still glittered like grounded stars in the threadbare grass. No traces of the wolves left, only the broken heel of her shoe flung aside in a mockery of Cinderella's slipper.

And then at last, she turned a tight corner to find his house tucked away like a half-forgotten secret.

She never hesitated; she never even thought about turning back. And Chatoya understood now that this unwanted and unexpected love could not be hidden any longer: that she wanted him to know.

She wanted to throw it in his face like a gauntlet, and demand he answer her. So you've made me love you – so now what? Here's my soul, still whole, here's my heart, full of you, here's your revenge and it seems really quite sweet.

Here's half your promise.

And she thought...yes, she suspected that for all his games with her, he might not believe it. His words echoed too often in her mind, the dry bitterness in his voice. _I don't think you're going to meet me in broad daylight, or tell me all about your day, or hold my hand in public. I'm the killer, the murderer. The monster. I'm the one they hate and loathe and detest._

She'd never dreamed of anyone like him. Certainly never that she could love someone so utterly cold, all ice and edges. And yet...and yet, those hints of humanity, those faded glimmers of vulnerability had struck her deeply.

Chatoya didn't bother to knock. This was all hers somehow, as he was, as he would be.

And there he was, sat casually on his floor with a can of lemonade open on the table and a book in one hand, apparently engrossed. The sight of Blue doing anything so breathtakingly ordinary was enough to make her stop short.

All she did was watch, and gulp down his distracted expression; every detail seemed incredibly important to her. With his eyes fixed on the book, all the power of that practised stare was gone – instead she saw the curve of his mouth, caught in a half-frown, and the fragile curve of his eyelashes and the tiny, brooding lines on his face.

"If you're waiting for me to finish," he said so suddenly she jumped, "you'll be here a while."

"I...wasn't," she answered, and fought to hide a wicked grin. "I thought you looked cute."

He looked up then, eyes blasting her like a polar wind. All the softness was erased, his expression wiped smooth and cold. "I looked what?"

"Cute."

His stare didn't alter. "I heard what you said. I just didn't believe it."

Chatoya was having a hard time holding back her laughter now. There had been a definite note of surprise in his voice. Now who was off-guard?

And she thought: should I tell him? Wouldn't this be the perfect moment, wouldn't this drag his world from under his feet? And she opened her mouth-

Behind her, the door slammed. Puzzled, she looked at Blue, but nothing showed at all – of course, she should have known it wouldn't. Was he expecting someone? But then...why...?

He stood, leaving the book on the floor as a girl came in, her cheeks flushed from the cold and pushed past Chatoya into the room. And she stopped; she didn't even look Chatoya's way, because all her attention was fixed on Blue.

What...

"Blue."

The girl said it with a soft, knowing satisfaction, her face curiously alight.

"Hello Sandrine," he answered simply, his mouth curling up in the heartstopping and utterly lazy smile that seemed to Chatoya a subtle sort of betrayal. That was her smile, the one he used for her alone. If he was surprised, the blue eyes gave no hint of it. "So you're back again."

"It's been a while." So curious, this conversation riddled with inferences Chatoya couldn't grasp; yet devoid of emotion. Both of them, stood there, watching each other with a beatific serenity. "Too long."

A shrug. "Has it?"

"Yes," she said flatly. "It has. Too long."

And then she charged at him.

The words of a hundred spells sprung to Chatoya's mind, sudden and frantic, but which, which, too many to choose from-

The girl hurtled in Blue's arms and stood there, looking up at him with the same peaceful calm. And her soulmate - hers, surely hers - dipped his head and kissed her. Four lips meeting, and none of them Chatoya's.

Oh no. A hollow began to widen beneath her ribcage, tearing open with a sudden, shattering certainty. He...he wouldn't have.

Surely she should have screamed, or fainted, or wept at the sight of him kissing that other girl with his eyelashes fanned on those delectably sharp cheekbones, with his hands spanning her waist as though she were made of porcelain, with such utter, infinite care.

Care he had never shown her.

Her world crumbled in dust about her. Every dream, every hope that had been held to him like threads of a fragile web that she had been slowly, foolishly weaving about him, connecting them inextricably, every thread was snapped, but she was the one who had needed that support.

She remained standing.

Her soul was on its knees.

Blue drew his head back eventually, and he and the girl only stared, as though all the words that had never been said were not being said now, but still being heard. His eyes were a colour Chatoya had never known, not simply black, but black of the ocean in endless night, black of charred wishes, black of the abyss into which she fell.

And then he turned, slowly, easily, a snake transfixing its prey - willing prey, oh, ridiculous, willing prey - and the most beautiful smile lit him like the sun striking into that abyss.

"I don't believe you've met Sandrine," he murmured, his eyes so immense and dark that they were almost lost, but she knew the only one to have lost was her. "But I have."

The human girl watched her, her face as impassive as Blue's could be, and she thought; yes, they are alike. They belong together.

"Why don't you run along?" he suggested coolly.

The hollow in her heart tore open in anguish and she could only stare, and feel tiny tremors start to shake her. Time passed, endless, disbelieving seconds, becoming not merely uncomfortable but painful as a tightening noose.

His voice chilled until it was sparkling, clear ice. "Get out of my sight. You are not wanted here."

"But I lo..." The words stumbled at her lips, and died.

His eyes met hers, and she was swallowed into them, devoured whole by the depth of immortal, ancient cruelty, the utter lack of mercy or compassion, of anything but darkness.

The words flew at her like wicked daggers that she could not dodge.

"I never did."

Time was frozen, awful, silent. And then she turned, empty of anything but that love like shredded violet petals, and walked to the door. Men had crossed no man's land like that, slow and steady and automatic, eyes vacant of anything but an overwhelming animal pain. Her feet seemed to stay still, and the world moved about her.

_I never did._

She knew she would hear those words forever, and be blinded always by that radiant smile, but at least it would block out that betrayal, that sublime, exquisite, soul-wrenching betrayal.

Four lips kissing, and none of them hers.

X - X - X - X - X

In the time that followed, she was empty. It was as if that image had been seared onto her mind; her soulmate, her treacherous, amazing love, kissing someone else. That one act, that one betrayal haunted her. Goddess, it was so simple, and it had opened a chasm inside her. His betrayal had sliced open the cage of her heart and out poured everything she was, every shred of hope and every savoured memory.

She was left empty. It was the only way she could survive.

The cold didn't touch her on the walk back, though the road seemed endlessly long. Drag and slump of her feet on the ground, darkening skies that drew over her like a shroud.

I am dead. I am hollow. The world is my tomb now, and you are my epitaph.

All the pain of those first few moments had cooled about her like a shell, shutting her away from the world. Inside her mind, all thought had ceased except for that single awful scene. Over and over again it played, every tiny detail made massive under her desperate eyes.

Play of light on his skin, so pale that greying shadows became pitch black. Terrible ordinariness in his hands, resting on the girl's waist. The quiet tick of the clock, playing the same instant again and again, minutes squirming under her skin like worms.

Each time, a little more of herself washed away, out through the rift. Another thread, tied to him – snapped, gone. Every time she had stood up to him – meaningless, useless. In the end, he had won, as he always did.

And in her mind, she felt an echo of her bereavement; not only had she lost Blue, but Hael too. Both gone from her, both lost to her. Each wrenching from her heart, leaving her fatally maimed.

Chatoya had thought Blue's revenge would be devious and complex – and now she saw how easy it had all been.

How easy she had made it.

Goddess, what an idiot she was. What a stupid, blind idiot to think for one instant she had ever been anything but another piece of his plan, another way for him to pass the time.

_I never did._

The words bounced around her empty self, all that filled her now.

The days ahead were clear in new, indifferent insight. The future laid out smooth and headstone-solid. She, Pursang's heartless queen, casting her eyes over death and life alike, seeing no difference in the two. Still breathing herself, but a thing long buried.

Pushed and pulled in political tides she cared nothing for, while her friends lived on in ignorance of all that had been – and had never been – between her and Blue. Not a one of them had ever known. None of them ever would.

The world would whirl around her while she sat at its centre, an unchanging, barren being. Her body would rot around her, decaying around an empty husk. Her hair would grey, and her skin would fold and wrinkle, her powers would fade...

As the days and the weeks rolled by, she drifted through her life like a leaf tugged to and fro in autumn winds. Her replies were vague and automatic; her heart lashed by the snug intimacies and closeness of the couples around her. When Aspen Martin met her, he no longer looked at her face, simply because he found the devastation there – a mirror of himself, once – too hard to bear. For the others, she forced her smiles and concealed her anguish, and they seemed not to notice.

One day, she went back to Blue's house. She didn't know why; some feeble hope, some need to see him. Despite herself, she missed the icy azure blast of his eyes, she even missed the warm weight of his body in the chill, echoing depths of twilight.

And she found his home empty.

The door was open, the rooms devoid of furniture. Nothing remained to show he had ever been here, except for a crumpled sheet of music wedged in a crack. He had gone, and it was as if he had never been.

For some reason, it stung her. She stood there, breathing too fast for her slow walk, an odd nausea lurching in her stomach. Her face too pale, and her hands trembling, although she didn't feel it.

He was gone.

Chatoya became colder. The world became a vice around her, crushing her with the knowledge he was not there. Every word spoken to her, every gesture seemed designed to remind that he was gone. Cougar gloried in Blue's absence; in the cosy evenings, Lance and Vaje discussed it at length while in the high school, rumours hummed about 'their' Blue's sudden departure. And through it all, she sat, affecting indifference.

And her heart fractured a little further until she was afraid the cracks would begin to show in her eyes.

Inside, she was breaking apart. All her days were filled with Blue, every sense straining to recall him – his smell, his touch, his voice. Grasping at the smoky tatters of his presence. Except...

Except for the dragonfire, that rose like bile to fill her. Hot, acerbic, it sizzled along her veins and out to the ends of her fingers, flushing her skin. And it whispered softly, of betrayals old and new together, of a solution so simple...oh yes, as sweet a revenge as that visited upon her.

Why let the world whirl? Why not reach out, and grab it, tear it apart. Shake the mountains until they crumble to dust, bury the world in ashes and sand. Let the ground split itself and swallow him up, make the world his grave, make this feeling end.

If she could not have him, then no one would.

Beneath her skin, the dragonfire fluttered, little nudges like an old friend dropping careless hints in conversation. It filled up the space where all of her dreams and desires had been, scalding and ancient. Power rippled through her, this time not Bhari, but the push of a power that was meant only to destroy.

Yes, make his grave in the earth's airless clutch. Drown him in soil, and fill those blue eyes with pebbles. Hurt him as he has hurt you, isn't that fair? Kill him, and kill your love, let him rot-

Become what he is, she thought with a cold tingle. No. Never. He wants me this way – he wants me broken, and angry, and just as goddamn stupid.

And I won't let him.

The dragonfire receded, flowing away and leaving her almost empty again. Almost. Except for this tiny flicker in the vastness, this candle that both lit a small piece of her soul, and showed her the dreadful shadows within it.

I won't let him.

She took a deep shuddering breath, and it felt like the first she had taken since that moment. In her stillness, it was a tiny earthquake.

She would not be like him. She wouldn't let herself become cold, let the lives she controlled become mere numbers. If she stopped caring, it was as good as handing him the pulped shreds of her heart as a prize.

Fine. He had won. Let him have this victory, but she would have others. They would all be sour, all be tainted by the remembrance of his words, but she would have them. Chatoya knew, she knew with devastating simplicity that in every second, she would feel the rift in her heart.

Love had made her weak, and now loss would make her strong. Not hate. Hating him...oh gods, she couldn't truly hate him. She loved him too much for that, and that was the real tragedy. She could spit her words, and let anger drive it, but under it all would be love. Love spurned, love denied, love enraged. But love all the same.

And right now, it tasted much the same as despair.

It would be survival of a sort. She would continue in a life where her monster had vanished, yet somehow left her world a darker place. In her heart, she knew she lived only out of spite, only to cast her own feeble revenge.

Only out of the faint, foolish hope it would be some immense trick.

But in truth, she knew, it was no hoax. Her enemy had become her beloved, and her dreams had become dust. He had betrayed her, exactly as he had told her he would – and how often had he warned her? How often had she ignored him in arrogance and ignorance? Safe in her illusion that she was somehow better than him and immune to him.

He had betrayed her, and she loved him. Even as the shadows rose up to strangle her, and his smile spoke of secrets and sin, even as he cut her with his words, she loved him.

Yes. She would go on without Blue Malefici. She could live, by living a lie.

The truth hurt far too much.

_It don't make no difference  
Escaping one last time  
It's easier to believe in this sweet madness, oh,  
This glorious sadness...  
That brings me to my knees._


	42. Epilogue

Lyrics taken from _Blue_ by the Smashing Pumpkins (Album: Pisces Iscariot)

**Chimera – Epilogue**

_Hey Blue, where'd you run to now?  
Miss you since they found you out  
I've been waiting such a long time  
For your smile, for you_

The names were blurring on the page. They always did.

"Say again?" she said tiredly. Chatoya rubbed at her forehead with one hand, a throbbing headache taking root above her eyes. She could have erased it with one tap, an ounce of dragon power, but she didn't. This pain took away another, stealthier pain.

A hand wrapped around her wrist, and drew her arm down to the table. "I think we've done enough for tonight," Vaje Chusson said. His eyes were kind, a little pitying. "You're shattered."

She wanted to laugh out loud, but knew the sound would be bitter, harsh as a raven posturing over carrion. That was truer than he knew.

"It's early," she said. So early, and there were all these files to wade through, paper piled high.

She'd never understood just what the assassins had meant when they talked about a contract. She'd imagined a flimsy piece of paper, but instead, it was a thick document, packed with every detail of every mark's life. From the car they drove to the way they took their coffee.

Vaje groaned half-heartedly. "Aren't you hungry?"

Hunger... She paused from flicking through another file, her fingers riddled with papercuts she no longer felt. Yes, there was always a constant ache in her now, but if she didn't eat, at least she could pretend it was food she needed.

"No," Chatoya said, and bent her head back to the folder.

"Look, it's pretty unlikely any of this lot are going to bite the gravedust tonight," wheedled the shapeshifter. "Lady, c'mon! I know they're all important to you, I know that, but even we have to sleep."

But that was it.

However much she pored over these files, with their photographs in splashes of bright colour, with their neatly typed words and sometimes surprisingly tender observations, they meant nothing. It seemed an effort even to read them, let alone feel any compassion for these people thrust up as targets for Pursang's hunters Desperately, she tried to care about the family man who had snubbed the wrong Night Lord, the young working woman who'd overheard the wrong conversation, but she remained blank.

She wanted herself back again. To be that livid, scared witch who had stood up to Blue Malefici time and again, who had been so naïve as not to know she loved him. If only she could rip away those times and live them forever, glorying in her innocence, in her tragic self-belief.

Better than being this hollow, congealed creature.

She searched the contracts, hoping to see something that would raise anger in her, feigning sharp words in the hope something would echo in her soul, wanting to feel pity instead of this flat, dead regret.

All she found was her belief that it didn't matter.

How could it matter? How could anything matter when there existed the surety that she could not win in this endless intricate game of lives? When she found herself not a player but a piece?

The belief grew everyday, and her despair with it. It couldn't be true, oh gods, it couldn't be true. If she could find one life that touched her, one sentence that made her heart stir, it would not be true.

"Go to bed," she ordered without looking up. "I'll carry on. I'll sleep later."

She didn't see the resignation in Vaje's face. She didn't need to; they'd played out this scene for weeks. Sometimes Lance would be there, punching the air at her stubbornness; sometimes Aspen with his soft pleading. None of them made a difference.

But instead of muttering something sullen and wandering off, he folded his arms. "No, you won't. I know this one, witch, and I ain't buying. You'll stay up all night, and you'll be here when I get up tomorrow, and then you'll lie about it."

"Fine," she murmured, fingers red and rough from flicking through too many pages. "I won't bother lying next time."

A strange, low sound filled the room and it was a good few seconds before she realised it was Vaje, growling. A glance up told her it might be time to overturn the table and take shelter under it - his eyes were narrowed, while the foot he was tapping had become a blur.

"You. Cannot. Live. This. Way. Chatoya, you will kill yourself. You're a ghost as it is - you looked in a mirror lately?"

He reached over and tugged her hair, fingers catching on the knots. For a moment, she thought he'd done it in spite - in a crazy flash, it seemed it wasn't Vaje at all, but a boy who'd cast a shadow long across her life, yet in his absence, seemed to have blotted out all light. His voice echoed in her head, quizzical and cold.

_Tell me, what do you see when you look in the mirror now?_

And his betrayal slashed her again, she bled again.

Even the numbness was better.

But she blinked, and it was only Vaje with his eyes so full of compassion that he could never be Blue. Only Vaje, safe, solid, calm. And she cursed him for it.

"Please..." the coyote shifter said, tipping up her face with gentle fingers. "Leave it. Get some shuteye."

Go to her empty bed, where there was no imprint of his body, where his weight would not be warm and heavy at her side - where there was too much room for her to turn endlessly, tangling the sheets between her legs. Wanting back his cruelty, his taunts, his unexpected serenity, wanting anything but her lonely world.

"Tomorrow," she said, not meaning it.

He scowled.

"Promise," she said, not meaning it.

A sigh escaped him. "Okay. But if you don't keep it, I'll make Lance sing. And until you've heard his rendition of 'My Heart Will Go On', you've never known torture."

She half-smiled, because it was what was expected, before bending her attention back to the files.

Distantly, the creak of the stairs registered; the low noises of hurried chat as the house settled into silence like some great lazing lion.

Page after page turned under her eyes. She was reaching for the next file, knuckles knocking her half-empty coffee, cold and scummy with milk. And then her eyes focused on the name.

Black printed copperplate. She read it once.

And in her heart, faint as a beacon on the edge of the horizon, something flickered.

Again, Chatoya read the name. In the hush, she became aware of her heartbeat, quicker than it had been, pounding out the rhythms of her pain. And again, hardly believing it.

Of course, it was only logical it should be here, among the legions of the other condemned. But she hadn't thought...she'd never really believed. This file was different from all the others.

It was Jepar's. And it made interest tingle icily in the back of her head.

She'd never known exactly why it was he'd come to Ryars Valley; as the son of a prominent shapeshifter house, there was virtually nothing his family connections couldn't buy, bribe or bully him out of. And yet, those laughing green eyes would cool every time she asked, and the one time she had dared to push him, neither of them spoke again until the bruise on her arm and the cut on his face had healed.

Slowly, she opened it. The first page wasn't the usual neat typeface, but handwritten, and on an expensive, gilt-laden letterhead at that, though someone had had the sense to laminate it. A label in the corner read: 'Extracted, Jubatus Vault, Rothschilde Bank, 13.02.64 by S. Chusson.'

She knew enough jargon now to translate. Vaje had stolen it, thirty-odd years ago. The writing was long and sloping, easy to read.

_January 19th, 1944_

_For Simone and Anthony, future parents of Jepar Jubatus; that you may understand your child's future, and suffer his loss with grace:_

_We have always been an honourable family. We were most faithful to the Five in the Burning Times, and for that, Fireblade gave us the gift of prophecy; to see in flames the shape of the future where others see the shapes of the smoke._

_We had thought our last seer dead, but shortly after Samhain of last year, I received a letter from her. I enclose it here in full. Remember that our seers have led us to high status and renown, even when their prophecies are hard to accept_

_In blood and honour,  
Nicholas Jubatus  
Third heir to House Jubatus_

Blood and honour. She traced the crest at the top of the parchment that bore the same motto in Latin. Jepar's family had supported the Five? Yes...deep in the hidden crevices of her memory, she glimpsed Kheo with his hand resting casually on a cheetah's back, fondling the thick fur, as one might a favoured pet.

Most faithful. And most enslaved. Chatoya shuddered, angry that those dark times should still reach across the years to touch her now.

"Our memory will never fade," she heard Kheo murmur, his voice fresh and confident as if he stood beside her. "We are the greatest of them all. And they will know it."

They knew it. They hated it - and they killed you for it.

Curious now, she flipped over the letter. Pinned underneath was another letterhead, the crest identical but the words different, and the handwriting cramped and hurried.

_Seen in the flames by Merle Jubatus, November 1st, 1943_

_Dearest Nicholas,_

_Please pass this on to your nephew's family. The sight comes to me only rarely now, but last night I was shown some most startling events in the Samhain bonfires._

_The good news first - Anthony will rise to become the head of House Jubatus, and further increase our influence among the Nightworld. He will have two children; the elder a girl, and the younger a boy, both strong in power. The boy will be Jepar, named for my father, and the girl Gatajri._

_The boy will commit a great crime, and be exiled for his sins; but in his exile, he will balance the evil he had done with many small acts, and one great one. Impossible though it seems, Kheoussan Rastaban will return, and seek war. He will call to the Four like a blood moon rising, call them back from beyond the grave if he must, and they will be powerless against him._

_He is not dead; far from it, and he wants the world to burn._

_Jepar's part in this will be significant, yet he will have to sacrifice one he holds most dear if he is to have even a chance of success. If there is weakness in his character - he will fail. The Burning Times will return, and this time, there will be no Ryar, no rebellion. We supported the Five to ensure our survival - but the world can no longer suffer the wrath of dragons. He must be strong, and those around him must be strong, for he will have some part in Kheoussan's awakening and if he realises...if he falters...well, I am glad that I shall be nothing but bones picked clean._

_I am sorry to be the bearer of such news,  
Merle Jubatus  
Seer of House Jubatus_

Oh, sweet Goddess.

Chatoya read the words over and over, desperately hoping they would change; that it was not true. Please, no. If she closed her eyes, Kheo was there, imprinted on her eyelids as he was imprinted on her heart.

Kheo's kitten. Of all the Four, Bhari had been closest to Kheo, but even she had not understood the complex, poisonous paths his mind walked. Even she had feared him.

Physically, he was never very prepossessing; where Fireblade's very face screamed out his inhumanity, the fire snaking under his skin, Kheo was shadowy and subtle. Nothing about him stood out, except for the vast softness of his eyes. Eyes to coax, to seduce - and to terrorise.

"We will never die," he had said mildly, playing with a piece of cord. Twisting it through his fingers, though Bhari knew it was not thread but woven from hair. Shiny auburn hair, rolled between his palms. "Do you truly think we were born for something so mundane as death?"

Bhari had shrugged. Hael was lost to her by then; couched deep in mourning for his massacred family. "Nothing is forever."

The war had been in its early stages; the Drax flooded over the witches in wave after catastrophic wave, and victory had seemed certain and absolute - merely a matter of time.

He tied a loose knot in the string, and his smile, always so sweet, flickered. "How little you know, darling, even after all these years."

"We shall die," she said coolly, "as all the Drax did. We shall tire of this world and then we will scatter ourselves into dust and drift on the winds. But we will not die in this war, Kheo, and we shall not die until we choose to."

He pulled tight the knot, and in the small antechamber behind him, a woman screamed. Raising an eyebrow, he offered her the cord. "Would you like to try?" The discussion was over, she knew, and he was feeling playful. "These mortal enchantments have their uses after all."

"I have no time to play with your pets."

A tiny frown turned down his mouth. "Darling! Pets are very calming. Just the thing to soothe you after a long day." His index finger sharpened into a talon; one flick, and a smattering of hairs cascaded to the floor as the captured witch wailed. "Besides, you must appreciate them while you can. They have such short lives."

"They certainly do around you," she remarked, bored of his obsession with mortals. The woman's screams rose higher, shrilling painfully on Bhari's hearing as Kheo twisted the hair into a series of intricate loops. "Enough of this racket!"

Bhari gestured, just once, and the woman was silenced. Kheo's eyes chilled, until the icy-blue flecks in them glittered like tiny razors.

"Be wary of taking too many liberties," he said very, very softly. "Hael still does not know just how his family died."

The threat made anger curl tightly through her gut, but she met his glare without a qualm. Her words were clipped and bitter, bitter as the loss of Hael. "I only executed the plan. As I recall, you masterminded it."

He chuckled, a lazy, boyish sound. "My darling betrayer, which of us has the blacker past? Who will Hael blame? His family were necessary casualties. Nothing else would have won him over to war, and without this war, those wretched witches will spread like the disease they are. You know as well as I that Hael was thinking of standing with the rebels - but now, he is only ours."

Yes, that had been Kheo. He had shied from nothing, making those around him dance like marionettes in the intricate and bloody steps of his endless schemes. Infinitely complex, equally treacherous, the only gentleness he had ever shown had been - oddly enough - to Ryar.

So like Blue, she realised with an unpleasant jolt. Yet Kheo was more whimsical, more volatile. A careful hand could guide and temper his mood. But no one could ever touch Blue Malefici. Goddess knew, she had tried. Like an atheist seeking heaven, she had tried, and found only hopelessness and hell.

Alone of the Five, Kheo could meld his powers and keep his soul separate. Alone of them, he could take control of the others, and bend their wills to his own.

He had rarely done it; ever-wary, he had known the best way to leash each of the Four. To Bhari, he had promised power and prominence. To Fireblade, a vast battlefield and glory, his name echoing down the ages in awe. To Hael, the gracious lie of peace to come, and vengeance. And to Ryar?

Who knew what he could possibly have promised Ryar.

And if Kheo were to return...

Chatoya shuddered. She would be lost to Bhari - there would be no chance to fight, nothing but the titanic violence of the dragon. No resisting Kheo's call - he was Ether, Spirit.

"And what does that mean?" Bhari had asked in her light, mocking voice when she first met him. He had been little more than a fey child then, old beyond his years. "Spirit. Nothing, it seems to me."

And he had smiled, a terrible and gentle smile, and crooked one finger.

She was dragged forwards, as if her skeleton sought to explode from under her skin; blackness flowered around her. Bhari had shrieked, but there had been no sound, no sensation - nothing but the darkness all about her, and her thoughts.

She had hung in that nadir for what might have been minutes, but seemed like years. Aware only that she was utterly alone - that this emptiness yawned on and on, and what if it went on forever, with her trapped here...?

_Spirit,_ his voice came like a hymn into her mind, and her panic dimmed. _It's just another word for soul, and that, my dear, is what I have power over. Every. Single. Soul._

"The world can no longer suffer the wrath of dragons," Chatoya quoted softly, Bhari's fear a mangled discord in the back of her mind. "But it looks like we will."

Did the others know? She was sure Ryar did not, and as for Fireblade, well, he would be saying nothing. Unless Kheo should come, and give him back his soul with one careless gesture.

And Hael...Blue...

She put her head in her hands, fingers scrubbing at her temples. She had thought the sharp sting of his absence would fade. But here she was, and some part of her still yearned for him, a part logic could not touch.

She had to know. If Kheo was truly going to return...

She had to talk to Blue.

X - X - X - X - X

The next morning saw her seated around the rickety dining room table with three caffeine-high mercenaries. Fatigue weighed down her body, but now there was a buzzing anticipation with it.

Papers were spread between them, the phone was nearby, and a large bag of chips was open and rapidly disappearing.

"...and then Marie banished the incubus back to the howling netherworld from which it came - her words, not mine - and sent the man who summoned it along as a passenger," finished Lance, reading the report with a perfectly straight face. "She always did have a flair for dramatics."

"What she's leaving out," put in Vaje, around a mouthful of tortillas, "was that she undoubtedly gave the incubus her address and told him to call by to go bump in the night."

The weekly reports from Pursang fell midway between the surreal and the stupefying. At first, she had suspected Lance and Vaje were trying to wind her up, but when Aspen Martin joined the proceedings, it became obvious it was all frighteningly true.

"Okay, sign off her cheque," she said wearily. "And any extracurricular demonic rituals are on her time, not ours."

"I dated a succubus once," murmured Lance with a fond glint to his sea-green eyes. "Unbelievably tiring. I just couldn't keep it up."

"That's what she said," chorused Vaje and Aspen.

Lance gave the pair of them a sulky stare to rival Cougar at his worst. "Envy. It's so sad to see."

Chatoya was beginning to find all sorts of bizarre in-jokes and old arguments surfacing between the three. It had never really occurred to her that they were close, in the way of people who had survived a trial of fire and had scars to compare.

"Enough," she said dryly. "I do not want to know the disturbing details of your bedroom exploits."

Particularly when they seemed so insignificant. She had been debating over whether to let the three of them know about Kheo; it had been a long time since Vaje had found those letters, and without knowing about the Five, it was unlikely he'd have put the pieces together back then.

"Next up," Aspen said, ripping open a thin brown envelope. "Well, here's a surprise!" A boyish smile played about his mouth. "Monty O'Shea finally won Neike Klein by rite of passion."

"About bloody time," said Lance, sounding curiously satisfied. "I was afraid the idiot would cock it up and go for conquest."

"Neike would have cracked his skull like an egg," agreed the vampire, with a little shake of his head. "Didn't you go for conquest with her a couple of decades back, Vaje?"

The coyote scowled. "Yeah, yeah, and she wiped the floor with me. How was I supposed to know she was the hearts and flowers type?"

The conversation was going completely over her head. "What on earth are you talking about?" She plucked the letter out of Aspen's hands in case that made more sense. It didn't.

_Am pleased to inform Chatoya Irkil, Pursanguia and Fury, that M. O'Shea and N. Klein are now bound by rite of passion. A good time was had by all._

Underneath, someone had scribbled: _but not by those of us in the room below who could hear way too much. Keep it down, lovers!_

Pursanguia was her official title. The rest of it might as well have been gibberish. "In English?" she asked.

Vaje, as the most coherent of the three, took over. "Well, we're a pretty close-knit organisation, and from time to time, our members do tend to get tangled up in lust, or love, but usually lust. It's not good for business to have emotions affecting everything, so if you want to swap body fluids with another Fury, there are rules. Firstly, courtesy. No touching without explicit permission."

"Very important," put in Lance, "We tend to keep a lot of weapons close to hand. Don't want people getting bits lopped off because they hit on the wrong sociopath."

"Secondly, if you want to stake a claim to someone - and this applies to any kind of obligation, not just a relationship - it has to be done in one of two ways. Rite of conquest or rite of passion. There used to be rite of blood as well, but only complete headcases do that one." Vaje spread his hands. "Obviously passion only tends to apply to relationships."

"You claimed Pursang by rite of conquest," Aspen spoke up, voice soft. "When you beat me. Well. Me when I was possessed."

"I did?" she said, startled. She had just thought that was Blue being difficult; not that it might be part of the complex social structure of the Furies.

"You got possessed _again_?" Lance shook his head. "Martin, you are careless."

"Conquest is always a battle of some kind," Vaje informed her, ignoring the others. "When Blue tried to win the Four by conquest, he wound up fighting us all. More often, conquest is a duel. If you win, you claim the other person for whatever terms you agree on."

"If you're like Vaje, you wind up as the lady's personal slave for a month after because you let her choose your punishment," elaborated Lance. "This is why it's very, very important that you make your terms watertight. Don't give them any way to wriggle out of what you want. Murder is our job, but politics is our hobby."

"Rite of passion though..." Misty nostalgia crept into the coyote's eyes. "A lot of the Furies shun it, but it's much harder to win someone with words and charm than to club them with a big stick until they fall over. Tempt someone enough to spend one night with you, and you're bound for a year."

"Romantics," grumbled Lance. "I _like_ the big stick approach."

"Why a year?" she said.

"It's arbitrary really, but the idea is that you'll think before locking yourself into that kind of commitment. Failing that, you can try for conquest and set a shorter time."

"Without it," Aspen said, fixed on her with peculiar intensity. "No one in the Furies can claim they have any hold on you. Not even if you're legally married." She heard too what he did not say, and it strummed a low chord in her heart.

Not even your soulmate.

"But with either of the rites, you can win whatever you want if you set the terms properly. Blue claimed Aspen and Therese by conquest, and that meant he had K'Shaia and Pursang into the bargain. Then you came along, and damn me, he's your soulmate and he can't seem to find a way around you!" Lance gave a lazy, smug smile.

She struggled to hide the stab of familiar pain. Around me? No. He found his way through me, knifed me with my own artless love because I was gullible, because I was too careless.

Aspen was watching her with a kind of sweet pity in his eyes. He knew the difficulties of piecing yourself back together, one jagged shard at a time, and if she had known him better, maybe they would have talked about it - maybe both of them could have taken some comfort from it. As it was, they merely observed one another, mute and respectful, as the cracks slowly reduced.

"Anyway, onto the next," said Lance, professional again, bending that tousled blond head over writing. "Hayley Wright in Scotland thinks she's tracked down our missing member..."

All the while, an idea was drumming a tattoo in her mind; conquest or passion, he has not won me yet.

And if there was one thing she was sure of - Blue Malefici hated to lose.

X - X - X - X - X

That night, for the first time in weeks, she reached along the soulmate connection that always floated at the base of her thoughts. She had learned to ignore it, yet always she was aware that her mirror, her echo, her nemesis lay but a blink away.

It was time to see him again. Yes, she might have Kheo as an excuse, but in truth, she knew, Blue's absence had left her longing for him. Her nights were haunted by the inky blue of his eyes and the memory of his warm skin, cloud-pale; by the strange caution of his kisses and hands. Those frail moments when that control had slipped, skidded, and the monster had become only a man.

She lay back on her bed and drifted, ghostly, towards her soulmate.

X - X - X - X - X

He dreamed of how it had been, when he had worn this face that he had stolen. Before the Burning Times came, and he was left desolate.

Before then...when the nights had been slow, lived in a delicious languor.

Sweat was a drying layer on his skin. Beside him, Bhari's breath was barely audible, her arm thrown over his chest. She, so graceful awake, was an ungainly sprawl in sleep, and Hael smiled to see her. She would hate the indignity; so averse to anything that spoke of pleasure for the sake of pleasure.

This uncomplicated affection was utterly alien to Blue Malefici, and so he explored it with care and incredulity, with something of Hael's own curiosity, had he but known it.

He felt the changes in himself like growing pains; a twinge here, and ache there, the result uncertain. Since he had brought the Four together, pieces of Hael remained bright and vigilant, and he often tumbled across thoughts that were not his, felt sensations that struck him coldly.

Hael had been so much he was not; a man who laughed at himself and anything that struck him as amusing, however silly or inappropriate; who used mockery not to wound, but to bind. Where he had embraced a chilly isolation, Hael thrived on company.

Those changes he could see; it was the others, pervasive, subtle, that startled him.

Orelie Perette had called from Paris, briskly reporting her successful kill. "One over-confident artist who will paint no more strange pictures," she had purred. "Shall I burn the others?"

"Are they any good?" he had asked, and from the silence on the phone, that was not what she had thought to hear.

"I..." Orelie regained her composure. "Mon diable, they have your face on them."

He felt the last ghosts of Hael, reflecting that murdering the artist had been a waste. Blue stamped on the thought. "Nothing sells faster than a dead artist's pictures. Burn them," he'd said and hung up.

A meeting with Nightfire's Latino envoys, in the damp heat of Ecuador. Blue had got up to order a cocktail from the bar of the small restaurant they were gathered in, and the Brazilian envoy had stopped mid-spate when he returned.

"But...Diablo..." The man was very carefully using his formal title. "We - you never drink."

Blue noted the beading sweat on his temples, the cat-cool attention of the other six, and raised the glass to him. "Clearly, I do."

"I..." The man reeked of fear, sour and stale. "I was mistaken, Diablo."

"You were not," he corrected. "As I recall, I banned drinking when discussing business matters."

"And have you changed your mind?" The gutsy woman opposite him arched her eyebrows questioningly. No title. No deference. He was amused, if not impressed. "I could use a drink after the month we've had in Argentina."

"Feel free," he said mildly. "As someone once told me, we have enough vices that one more will make no difference."

"What's yours?" she inquired, gesturing to the orange concoction. The others had shot to the bar like a pack of ravening dingoes.

"It's a Comfortable Screw up against a Wall," he said smoothly, and let his sinuous, wicked smile curl across his mouth. "Fancy one?"

She gawked. "Diablo..." Now there was respect in her voice. "Are you being funny?"

"We train you to recognise sixteen hundred types of weapon. Don't tell me you can't recognise a joke."

There had been other incidents too, brief and maybe unsettling, if he hadn't realised that it leant a new, more dangerous unpredictability to his actions. Now they watched him scrupulously, unsure if it was an act or a trick, never thinking it might simply be character.

And he had discovered - to his surprise - that he didn't mind these dreams, spent in the heady dragon times. More often than not, he found himself exploring the secrets of Bhari as surely as he had explored the secrets of violence and death. And in this, new intrigue; he knew her as though she was a part of himself. Knew the taste of her skin, and the weight of her thick black hair; knew with pleasing familiarity the way her face shifted from expression to expression.

Blue could have stopped these dreams of long-dead love, but he chose not to.

And if sometimes, he looked at Bhari and thought her face not quite right, found it too lush and beautiful for his liking - if he wished for her eyes to be moss-green, her voice to be softer, he thought himself haunted.

Not one of the people he had killed had ever haunted him as Chatoya Irkil did, yet surely his destruction of her had been more triumphant, more brilliantly executed?

Why then, did there seem little savour to it?

He knew the answer, of course; lies were for people who needed a gentle world, who could not bear the fact that truth was sometimes ugly and brutal.

He had spent his life searching for some trial of fire, something that would truly challenge him and oppose him, and in the end, it had not been a creature of deceit and evil, it had not been someone who fought him on his terms. Somehow, somewhere, she had fought him on hers - with her courage, and her warmth, and her endless tenacity.

Of all of them, she had understood him most, and yet she was everything he was not, much as Hael was. Bhari, the deceiver, the destroyer, had made herself a home in a girl who knew nothing of either of those things, except for what he had shown her. How strange.

Beside him, Bhari stirred, and levered herself up from where she lay on her stomach.

And her eyes were jungle-green, as if his thoughts had conjured her.

"Hello," she said, her voice was carefully neutral. It was her; slowly Bhari's features were remoulding themselves into his witch's, and the dream took on a wavering, unreal quality. "We need to talk."

And then his witch realised that she was naked, and so was he, and very obviously put two and two together to make foreplay. She moved almost offensively fast, scuttling across the room to huddle against the far wall, arms wrapped firmly around her knees and her livid glare simmering on his skin.

This was - unexpected. "I assume this isn't a social call."

The tan on her arms and legs wasn't matched by the glimpse of her side he could see, and he dwelt idly on the remembrance of her under his hands, the smoothness of her skin and the surprising delicacy of her bones. Of how he had trailed his fingers over the curves of her body, how snugly she had fit against him in sleep. He wondered how she'd taste. He let that desire fill his eyes, and watched it unnerve her.

"If it is, it's an X-rated number," she muttered, her cheeks flushed. "It's about Kheo. I...don't think he's dead."

"Why, has his psychotic ex-wife tried to resurrect him?" he inquired icily.

She glared. "I don't know - have you given her a spell for it?"

Touché, and before he could stop it, he had flashed Hael's impish smile. "I learned my lesson last time. The Four will never be as they were."

"They will if Kheo returns," she said softly, and there was a certainty to her eyes that he read as truth. "I found a prophecy in Pursang's files. It says he's sleeping, and I don't mean that in the poetic sense."

He rifled through Hael's memories like a robber, but there was nothing there. Hael's surrender to the enchanted sleep had come shortly after he learned it had been his lover who had slaughtered his family to push him into warfare.

She was Kheo's kitten, Hael's voice whispered, laced with tragedy. I was fool enough to think she might be mine, but she was his to the last. She loved me, but she loved power more, and she killed my family for it.

"Are you certain?" he said.

"Positive. It's in Jepar's file. And it's not exactly unlikely, is it? He's going to resurrect the Burning Times, Blue, and this time there won't be anyone to deny him."

"A minor irritant," he said, shrugging it off. "My life is full of them."

Oh…she felt that verbal slice, the flinch in her expression told him that. "I'd hardly describe Kheo as a minor irritant." Her voice was waspish, but it didn't quite cover that moment of vulnerability. "We need to talk about how we're going to stop him-"

"We?" he interrupted coldly. "Why on earth would I want to stop him? I assure you, I'm far more interested in negotiating with him."

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. "You're joking."

"No, if I was joking, I'd have said a man walked into a bar and said 'ouch'. Clearly, I'm not."

Oh gods. He'd acquired a sense of humour. A dreadful one. "Do you think you'll get a chance to negotiate? He controlled the Four, Blue, and he can make us bend to his every whim if he wants. He can wake Hael and hand him your soul."

"And do you think he'll want to tussle with Hael again?" enquired Blue. "I assure you, my motives will be far more to his liking. He'd prefer an ally to an enemy. And who knows, witch of mine - behave, and I might even persuade Kheo to let you be."

"How generous!" So here they were once more, on opposite sides of a battle, and she had to win. "And I suppose all I have to do is beg at your feet."

"Well, if you like being on your knees, I can find something for you to do," he purred, but the words cut.

This was too intimate for her liking. She wanted to be fighting him, livid and bold, not staggering beneath the weight of her private pain.

Then fight, she told herself. Don't stand here and let him flay your defences from you. These are dreamscapes; a world as malleable and breakable as dough.

And once, they had been Bhari's realms. Anchored in earth, she alone could walk the dreams undeceived by their sly illusions. Feet of clay, Hael had teased. Head in the clouds, she had retorted, and sent him a dream that had woken him shuddering and shocked.

Air can build castles in the sky, whispered the Earth Drax's voice, insidious and invasive. But only earth may make them real, and in doing so, choose the nature of reality. Let him build his expectations, his fortress - and then tear it down, let it tumble into nothing.

With a flicker of her fingers, Chatoya was clothed again, some of her equanimity restored.

He gave her a hint of his wicked smile, letting his thoughts shine so clearly on his face she wanted to blush again. "Pity. Naked women have so much more bargaining power."

"I have no intention of bargaining," she stated coldly.

A small sigh; he actually seemed disappointed. "And I was looking forward to your…concessions."

"Why is it you only war with words?" Bhari had said the same to Hael, long ago; and she had circled him as Chatoya did now. The thought was eerie, for the past and present were only thinly split here, and with the right handling, one could become the other.

Perhaps she could play that to her advantage.

There was a small tightening in his jaw; she leaned over, and traced her finger across it.

"Why is it you only play with wiles?" he threw back, exactly as Hael had. The tones were a smidgen more bored, his face haughtier, yet she wondered if he knew that memories were leading him.

"Because I am playing," she answered, each circuit of him moving that fraction closer. "When I war, my weapons have much more of an edge."

"This is no war."

"It's no game." How gracefully he had manipulated her, and she had danced to her doom, enchanted by the music. "It was never a game."

"Then why did we play by rules?" That cool condescension was all his, and so was the merest curl of his mouth. "It was not for my benefit, witch of mine."

She knew where best to strike him then; his pride was always his weakness, and now she would make it his wound.

"I am not yours until you win me," she informed him. "Isn't that the law of the Furies? Rite of conquest or rite of passion. You have had neither."

Something warm began to smoulder in his eyes, deepening their colour to indigo. "And who am I to conquer, Chatoya Irkil? Let's not pretend you would allow the monster into your bed."

There it was; that quicksilver bitterness, the frosty tracks of a life spent alone and outcast. Oh yes, it grated on him, that monster who remembered the boy he had once been.

"I already did."

His eyebrows arched, quick, mocking. "More a wrong of passion than a rite, I'd say. And since when do you care about the rules of the Furies?"

"I am one," she said simply. "I don't just live by your laws - I make them. You chose it that way." And now, she thought, you will have to take the consequences. "And how do the Furies speak about you these days, Blue? Do they wonder why you can't control your soulmate - a mere witch, after all? Do they wonder why you let me live?"

She leant over him, glaring down into that fetching, indifferent face. She longed to smash past his absolute confidence, and she knew just how to do it.

Chatoya dropped her voice to a whisper. "Do they wonder if there's weakness in you? Do they gossip that the Demon Fury has surrendered to...love?"

His shoulders tightened.

She stood again, and turned her back on him. "After all," Chatoya said lightly, "if you can't control your own soulmate, how can you control Nightfire?"

"If you want your rite of conquest, then you have it. What is it you want? Set your terms."

"Help with Kheo. Every scrap of information Nightfire has on him - and K'Shaia too, if you can manage it. No active interference in Pursang's business or with our members unless it's with my express permission. No persecution of my friends."

"That's a loose term," he said shortly."Though I doubt it's an issue - you have to win first."

"I'll send you a list," she informed him with the imperious tilt of her head she had learnt from Jepar. "Your terms."

"When I win, you will continue to run Pursang - but through me. There will be no more of this ridiculous attempt to turn a business into a charity. You will stay away from my half-brother." His voice was steel, but there was an undercurrent of tension to it, vibrating like a wire. "You will make no attempt to defy Kheoussan Rastaban, if he wakes. And you will defer to me in every way."

It was an unappealing set of terms, but she had no choice. She needed his help with Kheo, and she needed to be unfettered in order to run Pursang. This had better work, she prayed. Goddess, let it work.

"Done," she said, and held out her hand.

For a frozen moment, he only looked back, and then he stood, naked and self-assured, and brushed her fingers with his own. "Done. As the challenged, you may choose the time, place, and weapons."

She concentrated, pulling Bhari's memories from the back of her mind like a rope of handkerchiefs. What she was about to do would have been impossible without the dragon's knowledge and power.

The dragonfire rolled out from her body in shockwaves, and where it hit, pieces of the scenery began to melt and drip away, colours changing and reforming in a slow circus. Under her feet the rough ground evened out, and became tightly packed dirt, while the cave shrunk into small bricked walls that formed a large square.

Weapon racks were off to one side; this was the imperial training ground of the Eastern desert lands, where the heat was as arduous and prickly as the people. Bhari had grown up here, the privileged daughter of a wealthy merchant, and a warrior befitting her highborn status. In her homeland, unlike Hael's, women were expected to fight, and to be good enough to hold their own against men.

She gestured to the square, open under the blazing sun. "The Court of Brilliance. Eastern staves. And now."

"Overly dramatic. If ingenious - I've never seen anything quite like these weapons, though Hael…well, we both know how that fight went."

And that was exactly the point. Hael and Bhari's duel had been a demonstration, and Bhari had been careful not to harm him. There were one or two - tricks of the Easterners' fighting that he had never been privy to. And that meant Blue didn't know either.

"You might want to get dressed," she pointed out levelly. "Or you'll wind up a lovely shade of lobster red."

"I didn't know you cared."

Oh yes you did, you bastard. And that's exactly why we're here.

She turned her back on him in one precise swivel, and so she missed his thoughtful look. But she didn't miss the small pinch of his power as he decided that naked fighting and naked ambition rarely went well together.

Chatoya picked out a stave; a long staff, five feet long, but tipped with gleaming metal hooks at each end, and with the ancient equivalent of a knuckleduster protecting the hand grips. Sharp spikes jutted from the wood at irregular intervals. This weapon could be as much a danger to its wielder as to its victim without care.

Blue strolled past her, so close she felt the air stir on her skin. He spent a few moments examining the staves, before picking one and swiping a few test cuts in the air. Already he was at ease; but then, that was what Nightfire had spent years training him for.

And then he turned, and his teeth gleamed in something that wasn't even close to a smile; his face was focused, his body relaxed, and it struck her that for the first time, she was looking at the face Blue wore when he killed.

And it didn't look much different.

"Shall we dance?" he drawled, the challenge ringing with contempt.

She had a brief and horrible mental image of Blue wearing a top hat and tap-dancing with the staff. Chatoya stamped down on it before it manifested itself. Dreams were very, very tricky things, and the last thing she needed was to turn him into Robert Palmer.

"How about I teach you the lesson you so badly need?" she suggested and whirled the stave in a deliberately flashy move, sunlight fracturing along the blades.

They edged about each other, and Chatoya let Bhari's soul, the tatters of her skill, slide under her skin along with her power.

He feinted a side cut at her, and before she had even realised, there was the solid thump of wood on wood. It was unnerving to feel someone else's instincts guiding her movements, but it was also the only protection she had here.

"And which lesson is that?" he asked, casual as if they were catching a coffee. "Witch to bitch in five seconds flat?"

And then he was attacking, pressing down on her - the staff whipped at her head, her feet, her torso, and to her amazement, she found herself blocking every blow, stepping like a dancer through the deadly motions.  
Enough of this, fumed Bhari impatiently. He's good, but he didn't spend three thousand years being thrown around by men who invented this art.

Chatoya was almost a passenger; for a frightening moment, her and Bhari's memories melded - a wavering image of Hael overlaid Blue Malefici, before fading into strings of smoke.

Unexpectedly she was moving forward, inside his attack, her arms and wrists aching from the weight of the wood. The staff blurred in her hands, left, right, and then the end blade swung down and round, hooking round his ankle and yanking the feet from under him.

"Upright to horizontal in five seconds flat, actually," she said, impressed at her calm. Or was it just numbness at this surreal battle?

He got to his feet gingerly. Blood was pooling around his foot, and his weight was leant on the other. It wasn't healing, nor would it here - this was her chosen battleground, and he was only mortal now.

"An art I'm sure you're practiced at." He sounded distracted, but his face cleared, and he settled back into a fighting stance. "How about we try a different way?"

She was unprepared for his swiftness, and the thought chimed in her mind. He was testing you too, and now it's for real.

His blood spattered the ground as the staff swung and darted, and she felt Bhari's fierce joy rise at the challenge. Again, and again, she parried and danced away from him, each time taking small bites from his flesh, leaving dark trails on his clothes. A blade sliced her arm, and Bhari's presence almost overwhelmed her with combative fury.

Let me take over, child, ordered the Drax, more alive now than she ever had been. Let me beat this little upstart.

For once, content - if uneasy - to be a passenger, Chatoya let the Drax's withered memories win this fight. Without Bhari, it would have been a rout.

As it happened, it was a rout: he stood no chance against a woman who had learned these murderous steps from the moment she was old enough to walk. Blows showered on him, light twinkling from the blades as they clattered together. The solid thud of wood on wood, and she knew her body would be a mass of muscle ache when she woke: back and forth they moved, him lamed and his face a mask of sweat, she moving with trained economy, delighting in his unease.

His hands slipped on the stave, slicing the web of his thumb - in that instant, Bhari swerved her body, throwing a honed blade into the centre of his weapon. With a splintery, feeble crack, it snapped - and he was disarmed.

One last move, the blades swirling as if they were silver ribbons and not metal, and as she knocked his feet from under him, her blade lay at his throat.

And as simply as that, she had won. Not through her own prowess - it was a dirty victory, but a victory all the same.

She looked down the staff at him. "How's that different way working out for you?"

His answer was grudging, and she fancied there was surprise in his face. "Differently."

"I want all the information on Kheo with me in six weeks. Catalogued and labelled. It was just lovely doing business with you." Chatoya gave him what she hoped was a cold smile. "Don't bother me again."

He lurched to his feet, laced with a dozen cuts. It was a petty, but wonderfully satisfying moment to see him beaten, and Chatoya considered bringing the stave down on his head just to drive the point, so to speak, home, but resisted. "I take it we're finished."

And just like that, he had hurt her once more. How trite, how easy. But she wouldn't let him see it. "We're done," she replied, and he was gone, only his footprints to show he had ever been there.

She began to move back towards waking, back into the safety of empty dreams. She didn't look back as the ancient memory began to drip and decay around her.

X - X - X - X - X

The world spun; her heart spun with it. She stood in a hectic cyclone of colour, her stomach swimming in the blurred scenery. Her head ached, her temples rapping out the tempo of her hurt. She shut her eyes, expecting to open them onto dawn filtering through her curtains.

The spinning slowed, and she opened her eyes. Her bedroom - yes, but in bright daylight, and there was a man lying on her bed.

Not the one she imagined there, either.

He was on his side, one hand casually propping up his head, his toes scrunching into the duvet.

"Hello, Chatoya." Hael spoke as if she'd been expecting him. "I apologise for the intrusion, but I thought we needed to talk."

"This is a dream," she said. "How did you get here?" She searched his face for those elusive signs of Blue's presence. "How do I know you aren't Blue? This could be another trick."

"No trick." The man stared up at her, his eyes so rich, so river-green - so terribly regretful - that she felt a nip of empathy in her heart. "I wanted to talk to you alone. This was the only way I could think of. I'm not very good with dreams, but...I learned a little."

"You're a ghost." Yet he was all substance, her pillow indented where he must have laid his head.

"No." Hael smiled ruefully. "I did not die in the Burning Times. I choose to sleep - and, perchance, to dream. Dreams were all I had left."

"You survived?"

"If you call it survival."

He gazed through her, as if she were glass thinly covering his memories. And she supposed she was; a stained-glass window where Bhari lay huddled.

"I might as well have been dead," he conceded. "I'd lost everything. Bhari was gone, and then - there didn't seem any point, really. She massacred my family for that pointless war, but even when I hated her, I loved her." His mouth twisted. "I still love her, and I don't have a clue why."

Because she was beautiful, Chatoya wanted to tell him. Because she was dazzling and splendid, and because those flashes of tenderness beyond her cruelty gave you hope. Because you loved her wit, and the way she would pretend she didn't need you. And she loved you, most of all that was what drew you. She loved you and you alone, with ferocity and vehemence…

But because she was cruel, she used your love to trap you.

"She never understood it either," she answered, moving closer to him with small and wary steps. "She did love you, Hael."

"Did she?" There was surprise twined around those words. "I was never sure."

If she didn't concentrate, she felt those phantom passions wrap around her skin like pythons, squeezing tight. "Oh god, yes." Chatoya took a deep breath, and pushed Bhari away, that jumble of sorrow, rage, desire. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"I never understood why she chose me," he confessed. "I was Drax, but she could have had Fireblade or Kheo. I was royalty, but kings went to their knees before her and begged for her favours. She cast aside men of power and ambition for me."

"Maybe she didn't want those things."

"No? Then why did she throw me away for them?"

"Because she didn't think she would be caught," she answered gently.

"No, I don't suppose she would have done. She was a wonder." Dreams filled up his face with spun-sugar delicacy, hiding the grief for a brief instant, before they melted away. "And a monster."

"Yes."

His body curled closer, tighter about itself, as if he wished for arms to hold him close; to whisper the age-old lie. The demons are not real. They stalk our dreams, they gobble up our thoughts, but they cannot stretch beyond our minds. Howling, wretched, they sit squalid at the edges of our certainty, devouring our logic with fear.

"More of a monster than I ever dreamed. Just like your Blue."

Chatoya laughed. How could he be so naïve, he who had ignited the Burning Times? "Not mine."

"Are you sure?"

Yes. No. Maybe. She was never sure of anything with Blue, and that was the hardest fact to bear. However she placed her moments with him, turning and flipping them like pieces of a jigsaw, gaps remained, concealing the whole of it.

"As sure as I can be," she told him guardedly. "Are you really Hael?"

This man I love from afar, for whom I reach across the gulf of time and experience, with desire, with tenderness, and yes - yes, with love. Just to taste you once again. I love you despite my pain, through my pain - the last spark of life in this desperate lunacy I am caught in.

He held out his hand, crooked his fingers. "Touch me. Find out. I'm not your soulmate, Chatoya, but I am part of your soul. You can recognise me for who I am."

She took his hand, so warm, and he filled her mind with the lazy flutter of tropical breezes; with memories of his family, who he had fought to protect, and only opened to the devilish slash of a traitor's blade. Of Bhari, the sleepy hum of her voice when he woke her in the morning. And of the way it had felt when a witch called Chatoya Irkil had taken his power, awoken a storm - and woken him with it.

"You were so very alive," Hael said solemnly. "I wanted to know who'd made you angry and afraid."

Who else? That was when Blue had first begun his destruction of her. She had twisted herself up in Hael's power, rolling into it like a kitten squirming into a blanket, lost herself in rain-streaked skies and tearing wind. It had done nothing to diminish her grief.

She had nearly lost herself. Jepar had brought her back, yet sometimes she wondered what would have happened had she remained.

"Now you know," she told him with a rueful twist of a smile.

He was still holding her hand, and he didn't seem inclined to let go. "All too well. I find myself the companion of a monster once again. Don't let it play out to the same conclusion."

"I'm trying not to." His grasp was a luxury she could not take with the other that she loved, so she would take it with her phantom lover, and have her foolish pretence.

"It isn't foolish," he whispered, and she started. The green of his eyes deepened, slurry-slow, and Hael gently pulled her down to him, until she was crouched by the bedside, inches away. "Loving someone is never foolish. And it has been so long since anyone loved me."

She longed to smooth away the sad curve of his mouth. Without his laughter and secret smiles, Hael was but the broken shards of a seashell; the sound of the ocean destroyed, drifting aimlessly to heaven.

And perhaps that was why she touched her fingertip to his bottom lip, tracing his mouth; something flickering under her ribs at the harsh breath he took.

"You know," he said slowly, neither of them moving now, bar her finger. Drawing out the lines of his emotions, the shape of his words. "Sometimes, I see you in his dreams - and he dreams of you, Chatoya, my god, he dreams of you - and I think I could love you."

She half-smiled. But that small revelation_…my god, he dreams of you…_set off a tumble of sickening hope in her heart. Fool. Haven't you gone past this yet? "Did you come here to seduce me?"

"No, but I am offering you seduction, if you want it."

"I'm not into older men. Or disembodied men. Not matter what changes they can make to their body." She drew back her hand from him. This conversation was nothing she expected.  
Hael raised his eyebrows and gave her the most sceptical look she'd ever seen. "Chatoya. I've had sex with women who'd been refining their talent for ten thousand years. Explain to me what you think you could offer that I haven't already had?"

Good point. And for a moment she felt more like herself than she had in weeks. "Battery-power?"

He burst out laughing, and with his head thrown back, he was Bhari's Hael, fearless and joyful. "I'll pass. No…" His mirth faded, and there was new resolve to his voice. "I wasn't talking about me."

"Then what did you mean?"

Strange emotions coiled in his eyes like the beginnings of a tornado. The weight of ages poured from them, bearing down on her with the knowledge of his anguish, his deathless and empty existence. "I know what it means to love evil, Chatoya. When I first met Bhari, someone warned me how it would be. They told me that she would be the best and the worst of all my days, that I would live as never before, lose as never again. Or I could have the quiet, safer life. You know how I chose."

"And were they right?" She wondered who this clever prophet had been, who had seen so clearly through Bhari's crafted public persona.

"She was right - and she made exactly the same choice as I did." He let his head loll back, a supplicant drinking in his blessing. "I always thought her too human for our times, but Ryar and I were more alike than I ever knew."

Ryar again, her presence a bare outline in misty recall, shining through in these intimate moments that Bhari would never have understood.

"As you and I are alike," continued Hael, focusing on her with new sharpness. "And you too have the choice, Chatoya. If you could have one day, one night, one chance with him, knowing it would be heaven and hell and no line between the two - or a mundane forever...which would it be?

A life of security, or the life she had lived; of flames and venom, of unfathomable betrayal and startling rapture. Oh it was no choice, she had already chosen.

It had been too late from the moment she let Blue Malefici slip past the bars around her heart and drawn him into the secret shadows of her self.

"You already know that."

"I want to hear it from you." His expression was the smooth acceptance of a confessor. "I need to."

She loathed him then, for making her unfold her pain like a wedding dress - only to find it torn, soiled, the dangling remnants of a promise kept.

"Even if you offered me one minute, I would take it," she said, her voice low. If she had this hopeless love, she would admit it, and she would fight it too. She would not let Blue have power over her because he could cause her pain. "If you offered me one second, I would still thank you for it."

His grip tightened with bruising force. "I am offering you more than a second…but I don't want your thanks. And you may not wish to give me them later."

"What do you mean?"

"I will give you that chance." It had the same solemnity of communion; here are my words, eat of them. "May you have more joy of it then ever I did."

"I don't want you to manipulate him-"

Hael caught her hand, and drew it slowly to his lips. A single light kiss brushed the knuckle of her index finger. "I couldn't if I tried. I can make him do nothing he does not wish…but I can persuade to do something he very much wants to. Do you think you have left no mark on him? Do you think he doesn't wonder when the world began to shift, and why it shifted around you?"

Blue had desired her, she knew that much. There had been passion in those few moments she found him unguarded - and times when she saw someone she might have liked, had their lives been aligned a fraction differently.

"I think he wonders," she answered with all the truth she knew. "You know, I think he even likes me, in his way. But I don't think that's enough for him."

"Once, no. Now...one chance, Chatoya. Do you want it?"

Green eyes met green. Earth and air, once they had run together, and it had been spectacular. They had gambled their love against the horror of war, and lost.

Her war had been more personal, yet there had been devastation and pain there too. But she had learnt. Damn it, she had survived, and she would not live her life afraid, sunk in despair.

"Yes," she breathed, and knew it to be the right answer.

The world spun; her heart spun with it.

X - X - X - X - X

She woke, expecting change, and found only the winter wind blowing in and bringing the clean scent of rain with it. Half-dazed, she wandered through the hours and went to bed again, to dream of Hael's hands, Hael's voice.

One day, one night, one chance...

The days began to topple past, yet she felt the change. Hope had returned, and this time, it would not be diminished by something as small as a kiss.

At her request, Ryar came to share a cup of tea, and reminisce over old times. Small, frail, she moved with a unicorn's grace, a joy in her steps that Bhari did not recall, but Chatoya revelled in.

"Kheo?" she said, when Chatoya asked, and her face softened. The long eyelashes dropped to her cheeks, and expecting tears, the witch whipped out a box of tissues. Instead the Drax smiled. "He was kind."

"…kind," she echoed dumbly. "Are we talking about the same warmongering tyrannical despot?"

Ryar patted her hand with sisterly condescension. It was teasing, but belied by her solemn face. "Bhari met Kheo after he had been in my father's court for many years. When I met him, we were both very young. He heard me singing one night, and vowed to find me. I suppose you could say he was infatuated. When he did, we…grew close."

Hitch of her chest, as if the memories were difficult. The startled depths of her eyes hid nothing, but it wasn't pain Chatoya saw; it was affection for one lost.

"Forgive me," the dragon pleaded gently. "It has been a very long time since I told anyone. Kheo asked me to marry him, but I refused. My heart was elsewhere, by then." Her laughter was choked. "I chose Fireblade instead, and he called me a fool, he begged me to marry anyone else. After that, he began to change. He became the man the legends speak of."

Kheoussan Rastaban, the Soulless King. The last great leader of the dragons, and the instrument of their destruction.

"I prefer not to remember him that way." A small lift of her shoulder. "He was always kind to me, even at his worst. Maybe if he hadn't been, I would have left sooner. The war would not have lasted so long." Now the glisten of her eyes was tears. "We're all a fool for someone."

How true, Chatoya thought wryly. But better to be a king's fool than a killer's joke.

"Why do you ask?"

Chatoya took a deep breath. She had no idea how Ryar would take this; knowing that she and Kheo had been lovers changed everything. "Kheo is alive."

The dragon froze. Her expression didn't alter for long seconds. Inert, she seemed only an illusion of life. Then she said very slowly, "That can't be true."

"It is."

"Oh god. I…" She staggered to her feet, her slight confidence vanished. "I need to think about this."

When Chatoya tried to contact her the next day, Ryar had gone. There would be no help from that quarter.

X - X - X - X - X

The days spun by; her heart spun with them.

At first there was impatience and anticipation; later Chatoya realised that maybe Hael had only said it at all to offer her hope. Yet as her despair died, and her determination to be ready to confront Kheo increased, she began to mind less that the promised chance had not yet arrived. Perhaps would never arrive.

I have better things to do, she thought, awakening each day. She did not want to be like Hael, existing with nothing but the steady onslaught of time. That might be the price of loss, but not one she would accept.

She pored over contracts with fierce intensity. Vaje joined her one night, insisting she try his Greek coffee, wearing an expression that said he expected a refusal.

"Go for it," she said absently, scribbling notes. "And can you ring Faith and tell her that if she steals any more artwork from museums, she's really going to need hope and charity, because I'll cut her damn head off."

"Uh?" was the only sound she got. She glanced up, and he was stood open-mouthed. Finally he recovered enough to say, "You really want coffee?"

Typical Pursang. Concentrate on the important details. "Yep. Two sugars."

He gave her a long look, such concentration in his face that it took her a moment to work out the emotion there.

It was pride.

"Whatever was wrong is fixed, isn't it?" he said tactfully.

She had forgotten how good they were at concealing knowledge. Even Vaje, all blunt honesty and striking temper, knew the silent tricks of subterfuge. His eyes told her that he had seen the contours of her pain, mapped it against his own old injuries and found at least part of the truth.

She gave him a smile, a genuine one. "No, it isn't fixed. But I'm not broken."

"I knew something had changed," he admitted. "But...I didn't know you well enough to ask. I still don't."

"Someone hurt me." Mortally wounded, or so she had thought, but now found it untrue.

His face filled with leisured savagery, strands glowing in the hot amber of his eyes, until she saw just why Pursang had sought him out and made him theirs. "We will kill whoever hurts you."

It had the icy ring of a vow, yet she felt...comforted.

And she stared right back; let the cold and dying parts of herself fill her eyes, just as he had. Once she had feared the pieces she was losing - now she saw that as long as she fought, it was not loss, but change. "I can do it myself."

"It's always smart to have backup," he admonished, and flashed a rakish grin. "You're going to do well, Chatoya. We're going to do well."

"Stick around," she advised, and even gave him a wink. "I promise, it's going to be interesting."

Piece by piece, she would remould Pursang. No. It wouldn't be easy; it would be a process of lifetimes, and only one of them would be hers. But she would make the start, and make it now.

That night, for the first time in months, she lit a candle and prayed to the Goddess for those she loved. For Cern, who fled his past down wild paths and Lisa, who faced her present on gentler ones. For Jepar, whose happiness she would have to crumble between her fingers, and Aspen, rebuilding his life with painful slowness. For Ross, for Lance, for Vaje, who protected her as she would try to protect them. And for Cougar, who was hiding under a slew of sarcasm and vitriol.

Chatoya prayed for herself too, because she needed all the help she could get.

It would take time for them all to come to terms with the changes. But they had begun, and that was what mattered.

X - X - X - X - X

It was some days later when Chatoya woke, flushed and uncertain, from fever dreams swirling with unfamiliar laughter. The night was hot and close, the air heavy with the smell of toasted tarmac and rotting leaves - the last withering pieces of summer.

But that other scent...

A faint, crisp smell like freshly fallen snow, one that her human senses would never have noticed if they weren't so unfortunately attuned to him.

One chance...

Chatoya pushed herself up from the pillow, and felt the warmth of his body against her hand. "What are you doing here?" The words felt thick and clumsy in her sleep-clogged mouth.

Blue was a humped shape in the dark, an amorphous gargoyle, bar the faint, knife-edge gleam of his eyes. But his voice rode the oppressive night like ripples of smoke. "What would you like me to be doing?"

"Didn't I tell you not to bother me again?" she asked with more curiosity than vitriol. Thoughts unfurled in her mind like sails, trying to catch the changeable breezes of his mood.

"This will be much more interesting than mere bothering," he informed her with breathtaking aplomb. "Look upon it as an education."

Chatoya fumbled for the switch on her bedside lamp, trying not to touch him because...it was stupid, but because if she did, he might melt into dust, into another broiling surge of fever dreams. During the weeks of his absence, the certain knowledge of him had become a reflex; when she could not occupy herself any longer, her mind flew back to him like a trained hawk.

Remaining in darkness, unresolved and impersonal, would have been easier. She thought she could even tell him to leave, and he would go, this night but a brief blot on her recollections. But she had always known this was not going to be easy.

The light snapped on, and when she had blinked away the sunspots, there he was.

Blue and white, her personal Jack Frost, tracing icy and glittering patterns across her heart. Against his poise, she was ungainly and dishevelled, her hair sleep-matted, her limbs heavy and liquid, and the fear of that dream clinging to her in a drying film of sweat. Shorn even of the flimsiest of masks, clothes, make-up, possessions, she felt naked.

"And what do you want to teach me?" Chatoya challenged.

He swayed forwards with the suppleness of a cobra - but she was the one charmed, held, waiting. "Passion."

The light sundered his face, leaving half in shadow, the other half in relief. She wondered how she looked, divided thus, and if he found her as welcome to his eyes.

"I don't think you're the one to teach me," she replied, splitting the sounds with silence as a blade might stab the gaps between an outspread palm. "If you couldn't conquer me with violence, what makes you think you can with sex?"

"I have no wish to conquer you," he said, drawing back from her. "And in that, witch of mine, like so much else, you're exceptional."

His mouth curved, and she felt her breath catch at the way it softened his face, stealing away the ferocity and the indifference.

"Me," she said flatly, though the words didn't surprise her. _He dreams of you,_ Hael had said, _my god, he dreams of you._

"Who else?" he enquired dryly. "Despite myself, Chatoya Irkil, I find myself making exceptions for you. Time and again, I'm surprised by you. Disturbed by you."

He reached out idly, pulling her hair through his fingers. Touching her without touching her, in a leisured way that reminded her of another man, stretching out from the past. Yet it was all Blue's measured subtlety, his hands drifting closer as if to brush her face, and swerving aside to bat at loose strands, playful, engaging, terribly tantalising.

"Intrigued by you," he finished, his voice low and amused.

Don't seduce me, she pleaded silently, hearing now the truth of Hael's warning. Hope and despair warred within her, the gleam of this one chance shadowed by the threat of his absence. Inconstant, he would stalk away - maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even the day after, but some day after that, he would be gone.

And even knowing this, she was glad he was here. Glad there would be something to clutch to her, to finger like a rosary and hold up against his cruelty. Goddess, what a fool she was.

"I've met women so beautiful that they were worshipped," he mused. "Women who had only to speak to seduce a room. And not one of them holds half the fascination that you do. You're so ordinary, so helpless, and even though you know it, you fight. I thought breaking you would satisfy me, but now I think that is not the kind of satisfaction I wanted at all."

His fingertips brushed across her lips, and the soulmate link leapt to life, so that for a moment, she was not one but two; that one soft touch echoed on her mouth, tarrying, and she saw herself through his eyes, felt her own breath shivering on her hand.

"Then what do you want?"

"To experience you," he said finally, as if this was the first time he had really considered it. "All of you. To find out why you haunt me so, why I want you so."

"Because you shouldn't," she said.

"That isn't it." He reached out again, his eyes dark with curiosity and lavish desire, to cup her neck. A crackling energy arced between them. "Not at all. You're weak and infuriating yet you keep fighting, and sometimes you even win. And once, if I could have rid myself of you, I would have. Now..."

He stopped, and she felt the surprise in his mind.

"Now?" she asked, her voice tight with anticipation.

Blue's laughter was a lazy sound that matched the simmering night. "Now life would be very boring without you."

"It would be very easy without you."

"Some things are better hard," he drawled. "Trust me on this."

His hand was gliding over her collarbone, toying with the strap of her camisole. Sparks sprang through the link at his touch, darting eerily under her skin.

"Considering what happened last time I trusted you...I'll pass." The question was poised on her lips; was it real, you and that girl? Or was it some elaborate game?

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "You should know the answer to that by now. I made you a promise, and I kept it. I did what was necessary."

Yes, he would look at it that way.

How you hurt me. How you toyed and wavered and manoeuvred, taking my soul apart fragment by fragment. I used to love my life, I thought myself blessed because the sun always shone - but then you came.

And you were so much brighter and so much more beautiful, and you filled the world with colour and vitality - and only when it was too late did I realise that the light in you was only shadows of a different hue.

And now the sun is back, and I hate it because it will never replace you.

"It was cruel," she said.

"What were you expecting? A happy ending? You should know better by now. People like us make endings, but they're rarely happy."

"Then why are you here?" she threw at him.

He leaned in, and she felt the premonition of the kiss blooming like thunderheads on the horizons before his mouth touched hers, delicate pressure that sank into a mesh of lips and tongues. They moved into each other, his arms braced about her.

This was what she had missed most of all; this fiery, fragile fight, the kiss changing every moment, demanding, denying, teasing, but above all, overwhelming. One palm flat on his chest, she could feel his heart beating in tandem with her own, some small, strange quirk of the link.

At last he drew back, his eyes pools of gold, soft and sure. "To make a beginning," he said finally. "Isn't that what you want?"

"Is it what you want?" she countered, unwilling to admit her vulnerability.

"Yes."

"And if it isn't what I want?"

"Then you're a liar," he said dryly. "And a terrible one at that."

She didn't want him to go. Wasn't that why she had struck that quiet bargain with Hael, giving the deepest part of her pain in return for the cause of it all? And she knew how this would go, she already felt his absence, like the weightless shape of his shadow, but she thought now she could bear it.

"Stay then," Chatoya said, hearing the chime of her breaking heart, already planning how to mend herself once again. Madness this, but when had their relationship been anything else? She pulled him down to her, and gave him a smile she knew would die. "But you had better be entertaining."

His answering smile was succulent, a rich promise of all she suspected he would be, and as he turned the light away, leaving them in a mist of shade, Blue purred, "I'll see what I can do."

X - X - X - X - X

"Entertained?" he asked coolly, between kisses, and she answered, "Somewhat."

When half their clothes were on the floor, his hands sliding over her skin with wickedness, with tender finesse and the covers tangled at their feet, he murmured, "Entertained?" and she answered, with a catch in her voice, "Very."

When they brushed against one another, exploring, testing, discovering, skin on slick skin, her breath harsh in her throat, he asked raggedly, "Entertained?" and she said against the warmth of his neck, "Absolutely."

And when she pressed her palms flat against his back, legs entwined, their bodies moving in a careless, easy motion, his eyes half-lowered and darkly glazed, Chatoya whispered, "Entertained?" and he, voice throaty, lifted those dazzled, dazzling golden eyes to her and replied, "You have no idea."

He said nothing else.

X - X - X - X - X

Dawn was rolling in by time she fell into sleep, slumped against him. Her mind sank deeper and deeper, past the surface of her own thoughts and feelings, sliding inexorably down the link to the icy place where he kept his secrets. She expected some barrier, keeping her out, but there was nothing.

Chatoya found herself treading, barefoot once more, on slick ice. Fine mist dusted her skin with cold, and she waded through it, walking down this difficult and open road. Further in, she began to see shapes swaying under the icy walls and hear a babbling rush, and if she stopped to examine them, they became clearer, but not clear enough.

She travelled for what might have been minutes or years, through the winding trails of his soul, paths unblemished by anyone else's feet. Around her, images began to flicker through the ice. Sometimes faces she recognised hovered there. Blue and Aspen arguing idly, smoke spiralling from Aspen's cigarette. Vaje grumbling, Cougar aghast, pain ripened in his expression. Sometimes, she paused to watch, but knew that these brief recollections were not what she was seeking.

On and on and on, to the sacrosanct core of all Blue Malefici was, until she came to a place that did not belong among the ice: a glen, filled with leafy ferns. And there, she saw what she was looking for - something to do with her. It was not in the form she had expected, but there all the same, tentative but no less dangerous. She wasn't sure exactly what it meant, or even exactly what it was.

For a while, she examined it, and then left, uncertain, the ice burning her feet.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya woke slowly, reluctantly with scraps of the dream swimming in her head. She stretched - and found herself alone, only a patch of warmth on the bed to show he had ever been there.

She had expected him to leave, she had known that, but it still came as a shock to find he was gone so soon. For a few breaths, she only looked at the emptiness, but then reached for him, along the link that was no longer a twinkle in her mind, but a flame.

He was close by. And his emotions were seething against the link, stronger than she had ever felt them.

She could have run out of the house then, desperation speeding her to him. Rage choking her, born of a hurt that welled up deeply in her soul. She didn't.

Instead, she scrambled out of bed, wincing at aches in places she hadn't known could hurt. She showered, scrubbing the traces of him from her skin, dressed, acted like it was any other day; she made the bed and beat the hollow of his head from her pillow with perhaps a little more ferocity that was necessary.

The knowledge of what she had seen in him - found coiled in his deepest, most sacred self - tempered her.

Downstairs, Vaje had a rather knowing look on his face, while Lance pretended to be immersed in the newspaper the instant she walked in. Lisa was cooking breakfast with her back ramrod-straight, saying nothing. Chatoya ignored them all, and as Vaje opened his mouth, strode out the door.

She knew where he was. It was as if everything he was twined around her now, tangling them up together in a series of intricate knots that could never be undone.

How well she remembered this path. She had been angrier when she first stormed down it, slapping spiky branches back from her, the forest scratching at her skin. Following him here, in times when he had been a thing of distant, icy beauty to her, a thing of close, burning fear.

Always contrary.

The pine-scented shade swallowed her up, blocking out the pale morning light as she walked further and further into the wilderness, as the air became stifled and the trees too close. With the gentlest of touches, she moved through, a jolt of dragonfire taming the forest so it melted away before her.

She wasn't thinking of any of that. Only of trailing touches, and the soft shudder of his breath in her ears, of a time spent snarled up in the arms of her enemy and her love.

How cruel that they should be the same.

With a start, she realised she was here. Before her, the trees gave way to thick, lush layers of fern, six feet high and swaying only minutely.

He filled her senses like a neutron star. And how afraid she was that she would be burned up by him, made ashes to his fire.

Even so, she pushed her way through the ferns, into the clearing, where this madness had all begun.

Chatoya stopped, and her heart stopped with it.

Goddess, how beautiful he was.

And how completely wrong for this world. He was all bladed edges and serrated words, a weapon in a world that was used to wars fought for causes, not for amusement. He had always seemed encased in ice, his heart never to thaw, giving away not a shred of himself.

How wrong for the world, and how right for her.

Sitting against a tree, he had one knee drawn up, his other leg flung carelessly forward, utterly at ease. But then, Blue could seem at ease on a bed of nails. What he seemed, and what he was had always been poles apart. His eyes were the heavenly gold of sunlight, and turbulent.

Yes, he was beautiful, sat there.

The light was gentle on his face, lending softness to the hooded eyes that wasn't really true, and a winsome bend to his mouth that was mostly illusion. His hair was stark in this world of green and russet, just as stark against that too-pale skin.

"Here we are again," he murmured. Heavy as honey, his glance trailed over her. "And what now, witch of mine?"

She didn't know. Goddess, would she ever?

Instead, Chatoya moved to sit opposite him, curling down in the shade. The grass was cooler here, but the darkness was kinder to her than the crash of sunlight would have been. Strange that the sun should light him so wondrously, yet never touch him, as though he were made of diamond, enhanced by the light but never altered.

"Why did you do it?" she asked.

"Because I promised. Because it pleased me. Because your pain's delicious, because I can. You know that."

"I don't mean why did you hurt me," she said slowly. Her skin felt chilled by the nervous jolts of energy that ran along her body. "I meant...why did you come back?"

He should have left her. He had completed his revenge; he had shredded her foolish hopes, left her crumpled on the floor. It hadn't been the first time she had felt misery so black and profound that the days had ceased to matter, but it had been the first time there had been no hope with it. Her life had stretched ahead of her, ever hollow, only his treachery sounding about it like his velvet laughter.

He should have left her to her despair, but he hadn't. And she knew - Hael had told her - that Blue had wanted to come back. He had wanted her.

The blue crept back into his eyes. It was like watching the sun drowned, taken over by this thick inky colour that made him into some darkling creature.

"Because I wanted to."

She had been waiting for the admission, but to hear it out loud - so bold, it was still a shock.

"I love you," he said casually, and looked at her quizzically. "I thought that was obvious."

"When?" she asked, disbelieving. It was too strange, too odd, too amazing to be true. He was only toying with her; it was some new, warped game he was playing. "During which part of my personal torture was realisation supposed to hit me?"

His face was impassive, as it had always been, yet there were tiny gestures that spoke to her, tiny intimacies she had somehow come to recognise. The newly taut line of fingers around his knee; the intense focus he fixed on her, and the little firefly flicker of his mind in her consciousness.

"When I stopped."

Oh...

"And you love me, of course." The statement was sudden, clipped out with faultless implacability. Yet...looking at him she saw something she'd never seen before.

"Yes."

She was stunned at the golden light that flooded back into his eyes. I did that, she thought. In his way, I think he does love me.

"Then I - I think I'm sorry." He breathed in deeply, and she suspected Blue had never said those words. When had he ever rued anything in his bloody, lucrative life? "I do love you, Chatoya. But not in the way you want."

"When did you get to be such an expert on what I want?" she demanded, almost angry now. Confessions of love were meant to be grand and great, made in joy. Not regret. Wasn't this the moment some part of her had spent forever waiting for?

"I'm not." He lifted one shoulder in a plain, blas gesture. "Sometimes I think I know nothing about you at all. But I know I can't be what you want. The monster does not understand love; the monster knows only the taste of blood, and the silence after the kill. And I am a monster."

"Aren't we all?" she whispered.

She'd seen so much horror since he'd come here, and almost all of it had nothing to do with bloodshed. Only to do with the dark, primal malice she had seen woken in the people around her, and in her mirror. When Blue had returned, he had made them all angry, all bitter, all afraid.

Fear made them all ugly. Fear made the monster peer from everyone's eyes.

"No," he answered, sounding so cool and detached. But the flushed gold of his eyes read the lie to her. "People like you fight people like me. You don't fall in love with them. Do you honestly ever think we're going to get a house in the suburbs and have barbecues in the back garden, or take some revoltingly cute children to baseball matches?"

She looked at him. He who had brought her so much pain, and so much truth. Strange now, how simple it all seemed. "Do you think that's what I want?"

"Isn't it?" He arched one eyebrow up into the spiky hair. "Don't you want to be happy, witch of mine? You won't be that with me. I won't make futile promises never to hurt you, never to let you down, never to be cruel to you. I can't tell you that everything will be all right, I won't wipe away your tears or keep you safe. You'll hate me as much as you love me, and sometimes you won't be able to tell the difference. You have my soul, but I think you'll find you've made a poor choice."

"What made you think I had a choice?" she answered, and spread her hands, struggling for the words that would explain this. "No one dreams of loving someone who'll hurt them because it's fun, or it's profitable, or just because they don't know any better. But that doesn't change any of this. I do love you. And I don't want some damn house in the suburbs. I don't want barbecues, or kids. I want you."

His eyes widened.

"Don't you get it?" she hurled at him angrily. "I fell for you - you, the evil, vicious murderer. I don't want anything ordinary. You wanted me to love you - well, congratulations! You did a fantastic job. It's you I love, it's you I want, and I can't settle for anything else. And you want me to just walk away?"

"No," he said, the scorn in his voice not aimed at her. "I was supposed to be the one that walked away."

She understood - how could she not, when she knew him in this intimate, terrifying way. "So what now?"

"I don't know." His smile was slender as the crescent moon, with the same cruel radiance. "I'm not made for love. Witch of mine, I'll hurt you. And..."

He stopped, as if something had shocked him. And when he looked back to her, there was an odd dreaminess in his eyes.

"And I don't want to do that as much as I did," he finished. "But I will if I stay."

The words hit her like icy water hurled in her face.

"So you'll run out?" No, don't let your voice tremble. Don't be weak now when it's taken so much strength to get here. "Just because you're afraid?"

"Do you really think I'm afraid?" That familiar stinging derision was in his voice, making her small.

She met him, stare for stare, the tangled, fiery mass of emotions inside her too great to be silenced. How often had she let him make her mute, let him stab at her with his daggered words. "Yes. You're afraid. Welcome to the world, Blue. Let me give you a bit of cold, hard truth for once. Love is terrifying."

He said nothing.

"It's big, and it's awesome, and it takes you over. It's the most frightening thing on earth, because you can't control who you love. It makes you stupid, and it makes you crazy, and it can make you so, so happy. And yes, it can make you completely miserable too. But I guess you won't ever know that."

He stood then, his movements blurring with such speed. "Maybe I know."

In one motion, he had pulled her up to her feet, his face close and angry, every word chopped out. "But you don't. All I have ever done in my life is destroy. And I'll destroy you too eventually, witch of mine. I'll love you, but I'll still destroy you, because it's who I am. And I'll enjoy it too; I'll drink down every futile tear you cry, I'll listen to all your pitiful pleas, and savour them. You've said it a thousand times yourself; my nature is evil."

I was wrong when I said those things, she wanted to say. No one is ever only evil, and no one is ever only good. We're all less than we want, but more than we know. And goddess, yes, you are cold and cruel and wicked, but you are more than that.

You sheltered me when the wolves hurt me, and no one else would help me, and you made me safe.

I remember times when you were tender, and I remember all those times when you could have ended it, and you held back. I love you because you are so cruel; I love you because I know those few times when you have been anything other than cruel are rare, and precious, and mine alone.

You tried to destroy me - but you couldn't. Every way, you tried.

But the look on his face was taut and terrible. For the first time, Blue Malefici had found his world shaken. There was no fighting this, no destroying it. This was new to him, and nothing she could say would take away his fear.

She was afraid too, but she felt the promise of this intimacy, she felt the hints of the everyday miracle it could become.

"Go away," he said flatly. "Forget me. Or, if that's too much for your tiresome, emotional soul, hate me. Loathe me, detest me. That'll be better. After all, you're so well practised at it."

Blue turned his back on her. It was a simple, derisive gesture, meant to dismiss and to wound.

It did.

She hadn't thought anything could eclipse the hurt of seeing him kissing some other girl, of feeling her life fracture around her. But this came close, gods, it came close, rising up in her chest and choking her breath.

Rage came with it. She wanted to slap him, to kick him, to beat at him until he submitted. But he never would. He never would...and there was no reason for her to stay here.

As she walked away, she wanted to look back, to run back, to kiss him until it was forgotten. But she never would.

Instead, Chatoya Irkil left, those words ringing like funeral bells in her head. Haunting her; the delicious, sensual tone of his voice, the slide of light across his cheekbone when he turned, the tilt of his head.

Oh, Goddess, how would she survive?

She slammed her feet down on the road, wanting irrational, furious things. To stamp so hard her ankles broke and her legs shattered and her body dissolved into powder. Wanting to break the earth open and tumble into it. That would be better.

Better than facing this savage sharp pain of knowing he was not hers.

She walked long, endless minutes along the hot tarmac. Kicking at stones, kicking thoughts around her head but most of all, trying not to think of anything.

Failing miserably. Images danced like a flurry of butterflies under her eyelids. The line of his hip, the curious blankness in his face that had contrasted so distinctly to his tender hands. Walking that slim line between pain and pleasure, her back arched so much that it ached in that tight, sweet way.

Her fists bunched. Goddess, forget it. Hate him. Remember what he has done to you.

Oh, gods, what he had done. The slide of his mouth along her throat, his back sweaty and firm under her fingers. Damn him.

By the time she noticed the figure leaning against the stone wall at the roadside, she was close enough to make out the face.

Numbness swept her.

It was Blue. His face was perfectly blank, but his eyes were gold and fierce, and he said nothing as she approached, and Chatoya said nothing back.

She only stared for a moment, and then twisted her face back to the road ahead, and the faint, dusty horizon, the town looming like distant concrete islands.

He fell into step beside her, his strides long and graceful and flowing. His chest hitched slightly, as if he had been running hard. He must have, to have caught up with and overtaken her.

The last of the autumn sun beat down upon them, low in the sky. And as the chill winds lifted her hair, and brushed her skin, Blue took her hand.

He did it very lightly, his grip utterly impersonal.

Dream. Hallucination. Insanity. One of them. Numbness rolling over her, stilling all her thoughts into one deep tranquil pool that didn't care about whether this was right or wrong or real. It was; that would do.

They just walked and walked and walked, back along the road home. Cars passed, and as they came to the edges of the streets, people too. No one turned to look at this really rather ordinary sight of a boy and a girl walking hand in hand.

He stopped her somewhere, and left her leaning against the wall, carefully avoiding thinking or noticing where she was. If she noticed, it might become true - and he might fade away, like mist in the morning.

And then this moment, this perfect moment in an imperfect world - this oddest of maybes - would end.

He came out with a carrier bag, and nothing altered in his expressionless, stunning face. He just took her hand again, his fingers twining into hers tightly, so tight she felt his nails cut her skin, and blood ooze lazily down. But not by word or blink did he show that he had noticed her presence otherwise.

They walked on, her hand bleeding, the hurt deep and taut. He must have known, but he must not have cared. Yet she had to fight to keep her peace; this pain was not new, it was the well-known sting of being in his presence.

They came to her house, bare with the wallflowers browning, wilted under a waxing winter. Up the path, to the place that had been home until she had found somewhere else to keep her heart.

Faces pressed to the window, but she disregarded them. They mattered nothing.

They stopped outside her door, and she looked up into those thrilling eyes that weren't quite so fearless now. There was still cruelty in the line of his mouth, still malice in the glint of his eyes, and she knew that whatever else he became, Blue Malefici would always be detached, and merciless, and unpredictable.

He would hurt her; there would be tears in the night, and tears in the sunlight, and bruises that ran deeper than her skin. There would be danger, and pain, and small deceits, harsh words and harsher actions. Blood would lace all their days, and the grim reaper shadow them.

Blue Malefici would never change who he was.

And she would not change. She would stand up and fight him, and throw her words at him, and hate him in the difficult times, maybe hate him in the tranquil times, too. There would be nothing easy about him.

But there would be moments too, when she could lie in his arms and be safe from the entire world and its terrors. Times when she could take his hand, and know his most secret, delightful thoughts.

All those times didn't matter.

Only now ever mattered.

He gave her the bag, and she opened it, curious even in this drifting peace. There was a video inside. And a bag of popcorn. And a promise she had half-forgotten. And of course - he always kept his promises.

The numbness was gone, and she was almost gasping for breath.

"I'm not made for love," he told her calmly, and cupped her face in one hand. "But maybe I can learn."

She looked at him, and it hurt her heart. It hurt her - but more than the hurt was the happiness.

"Maybe we both can," Chatoya said.

That impassive expression never flickered, never changed at all. There was only the patient silence, and the beat of her heart, and the soft fizz of his soul under her skin.

And in his eyes, so fierce, so possessive, both horrific and wondrous, she saw her future.

"Perhaps," he answered coolly. It was enough. It was everything.

_I lay with you this velvet morning  
Stay with me for a while  
Where we run to is up to you  
Just stay with me for a while_

**~* Fin *~**

So, if you've got this far, you probably deserve some sort of medal. It's a long fic, and one I thoroughly enjoyed writing. Chimera has been a labour of love from start to finish - but it would not have been what it is without the enthusiasm, encouragement, criticism and general awesomeness of the people who read it. So to you - thanks. You made it great: the flaws are all down to me.

And of course, as always, I would absolutely love to hear what you think.


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